Through Her Eyes
by Seizure-On-Demand
Summary: A new combat game arrives at Litwak's, one that features a blind but determined character named Nora Sparks, a champion fighter. From the moment her game is plugged in, Nora can only see everything through sounds and vibrations. She's not bitter, or at least she tries not to be. She might have learned to cope with it in peace, if she didn't have the misfortune of falling in love.
1. New Arrival

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Wreck-It Ralph. Those lucky bastards at Disney do.

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**Chapter One: New Arrival  
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There was a huge wave of excitement when a new machine was wheeled into Litwak's Arcade one bright Saturday morning, where it was quickly set up while a crowd of gamer kids hovered around eagerly. There had been a lot of anticipation for this game. When Mr. Litwak had placed an order for it everyone had been forced to wait three weeks for its arrival. Now it was here at last, and its bright green and yellow sign on the console flashed like a beacon. In proud letters it boasted the name _Brawl Nation._

It was a combat game, its gimmick being that its characters—a group of young adults with extraordinary abilities—brutally fought each other in extremely dangerous arenas for the entertainment of the populace, like Roman gladiators. The game itself was set in a post-apocalyptic world that seemed like a blend of desert wasteland and cyberpunk, adding that flavour of science-fiction that was so popular with the gamers these days. There were also the rumours that _Brawl Nation_ featured a controversial blind character, who was subsequently also the best fighter in the game. This idea appealed to the gamers, who couldn't wait to play as this character to see how good they were.

The hype was not undeserved. The moment the game was turned on there was collective astonishment. On the screen there was an establishing camera shot of the _Brawl Nation_ universe, while a deep male voice explained the chaotic and violent state of the world after a great nuclear war and the construction of the Brawl Arenas. The graphics were beyond gorgeous. Then the screen cut to the main characters, the Brawlers, giving a quick display of their powers and weapons of choice, which included fireballs, lightning, tornados, throwing knives, war hammers, samurai swords, and explosives. One young woman made a boulder twenty times her size fly above her head without touching it, before jumping up and destroying it with one powerful spin-kick.

"I think that's the blind one," Mr. Litwak told some of the kids as _Brawl Nation's_ start screen appeared and flashed at them. He flipped through the manual in his hands, which had a section that provided character backstories. He found the woman's picture and biography and lightly skimmed the page with his finger as he read aloud. "Nora Sparks, age twenty-one. She was born blind, but with the help of her mentor and adopted father Mad Max she overcame her disability and fully mastered her incredible earth and metal-controlling powers. Now she's a champion Brawler. Sounds pretty awesome, don't you think?"

"I want to play as her!" One of the kids cried out excitedly. Some of the others took up the cry, and Mr. Litwak chuckled with good humour at their enthusiasm.

"Relax, relax! You'll all get a turn. This machine's not going anywhere now that it's _finally_ here," he said, smiling at the kids. "To celebrate, the first round's on the house."

The kids cheered, and the beaming arcade owner handed out the necessary quarters to every one of them. They formed a line in front of the machine to play, and none of them were disappointed. The brawls were fast-paced, bizarre, and offered all the violence the gamers had wanted and more. The Brawlers were fast and ruthless, their attacks well-timed and dangerous. The game console buttons were on fire from each gamer's speedy efforts to keep up with the pace.

While they played, Mr. Litwak continued to casually flip through the manual. Overall the game looked simple enough to understand and play, but it was certainly not boring. He eventually returned to Nora's page, because half the kids were choosing her as their avatar and he was genuinely interested in knowing more about her. There was some interesting background info about how her birth family abandoned her as a child because they thought she was too dangerous to raise, and how a war veteran known as Mad Max took her in and trained her to be a Brawler.

The arcade owner thought the idea of a blind video game character was an interesting one, and as he watched some of the gameplays he was relieved to see that the programmers had made Nora a figure of inspiration rather than a figure of pity. This girl was no helpless waif. When he looked up from the manual he watched in amazement as she ripped out enormous chunks of the floor and walls in the Fatal Factory Arena and sent them hurling at her opponent with only a few simple arm movement commands. The gamers were amazed as well, and they instantly fell in love with the young Brawler. She was fun to play, and whenever she won a Brawl she would do a high backflip, landing in a perfect _kiba dachi _pose before punching the air in victory as the announcer's voice roared "You're a champion!"

She moved so quickly on the game screen that Mr. Litwak had to refer to the manual picture to get a really good look at her. She was a small woman with a strong, commanding presence. She wore a yellow-and-white striped t-shirt, battered brown cargo pants, fingerless leather gloves, and black combat boots that looked like they could kick someone all the way to hell. Her skin was creamy white, her blind eyes blue-gray and sharp. Her hair was her most striking feature. It was short with long bangs on both sides of her head that were shoulder-length, and one half of her hair was green while the other half was blue. She also appeared on the side of the game console with some of the other Brawlers, who had rough, grungy appearances like herself. But it was obvious to all that she was _Brawl Nation's_ shining star.

After his turn was over, one of the kids approached Mr. Litwak with a grin on his face. "What a game! Thanks, Mr. L!"

Mr. Litwak laughed. "Don't thank me. Thank the people who made the game. I'm just the walking quarter dispenser."

The boy shook his head. "No way, man, you rule! And so does that Nora chick. Yo, is she actually blind?"

"According to the manual she is."

"She's so _good _though!"

"She probably worked very hard to get that way," Mr. Litwak told him, looking over at the console and thinking about the years of hard training the manual claimed that she went through under Max's tuition. Someone was now playing as a character named Harvey Stormer, a young man with electric blue and silver hair who could create and control lightning at will. The game screen flashed as he attacked his opponent Nora with his Super Lightning Strike, his black leather long coat swishing around his ankles as he moved. Nora fought back by creating metal walls that absorbed the lightning, but at one point she took a bad hit when she wasn't quick enough to block Harvey's attack. She threw the metal walls at him, and he dodged them until one managed to knock him out. But the player's quick button pressing quickly got him back on his feet, and soon he and Nora were at each other's throats again.

_Brawl Nation_ was the centre of attention in the arcade for the rest of the day, and Mr. Litwak delayed closing time for ten minutes so that a girl and her little brother (who'd waited patiently all afternoon for the game to be free) could each have a turn. After they'd gone he quickly wiped down the screen with a microfiber cloth and left the arcade, throwing a pleased smile at the new machine before closing and locking the door behind him.

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**End of Chapter **

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**A Wild Author's Note Appears:** Yes, Nora _is _based off _Avatar: The Last Airbender's_ Toph Beifong, who is by far one of the most badass beings ever to come out of animation. Please do not complain in your reviews that I ripped-off Toph's character, because I'd like to remind you that Ralph and Felix are essentially rip-offs of Donkey Kong and Mario and no one's complaining about _that._ Nora's earth and metal moves pretty much look like Toph's, although I'm going to try and refrain from calling it bending in this story since that's not what it's called in my fictional video game _Brawl Nation._

I hope you enjoyed this so far. Please review, and keep in mind that all flames will be used to heat up my freezing dorm room, so I win either way.


	2. Brawl Bash

Thank you, reviewers and followers! You're all amazing and nice and you have my eternal love. Before we begin this chapter, I'd like to rephrase what I said in the wild author's note in my last chapter. Instead of saying that Ralph and Felix were rip-offs, I _should_ have said that they were affectionate parodies. I swear to whatever deity is available, I meant _nothing_ insulting with that wording. The point I was trying to make is that I don't want to be slammed for basing Nora off a famous character when Ralph, Felix, and company are _also _based off famous characters. This is fanfiction and I feel like I have the right to, ahem,_ borrow_ a few character traits for an OC. So a thousand apologizes to any fellow nerds out there who were offended by my careless wording. We are comrades, not enemies.

Please accept this humble offering of a second chapter, brought to you by time well-wasted and a laptop whose screen desperately needs a wipe down. Enjoy!

(An extra note: In case any of you get confused, I've written the _Brawl Nation_ characters with full memories of their lives before their game was plugged in. They're all basically long-time buddies celebrating their first day on the job, even though it's technically their first day being_ alive_. I hope that I pull this off okay. If you have any suggestions, I'm all ears).

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**Chapter Two: Brawl Bash**

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The arrival of _Brawl Nation_ caused some disquiet in the arcade. It had been years since anyone had seen a new game get such an exuberant reaction from the gamers. Even _Hero's Duty_ hadn't done as well on its first day, and it had also been a highly anticipated game. The Game Central Station was buzzing with talk. During the day some characters had sneaked glances of the brawls from their own games, which stood at the right angles to watch the screen of the new console. They claimed that it looked like just another flashy fighting game. So what made it so special? What made the gamers spazz out so much over it?

Above the new entrance in the Game Central Station the words _Brawl Nation_ tauntingly glowed red. Curiosity was driving everyone mad, and characters from various games loitered around near the entrance, peaking inside the tunnel which remained dark and quiet. No one had come out yet, and no outsiders dared to go inside. In the arcade it was protocol to allow characters from new games to come out on their own first. Barging into a new game for introductions was considered the height of rudeness as well as the height of stupidity, because it couldn't be determined how dangerous a new game's world was until one of its own inhabitants gave you the gist of it. So everyone waited as patiently as they could, listening for the sounds of the train. The Surge Protector didn't even bother to try and order everyone back to their own games, because he was just as curious to meet these new characters who'd taken the arcade by storm in just one day. He waited as well, nibbling on the tip of his pen to pass the time.

But the_ Brawl Nation_ characters were in no hurry go exploring outside their game just yet. It was only their first night in the arcade, and they had a lot of celebrating to do. Their Amphi Arena—programmed to be an Ancient Roman-esque venue for performances of extreme violence—had been quickly converted into a venue for partying. There was loud hard rock music blasting from the speakers, and kegs of various beers and ciders that were bottomless (bless the programmers). There was dancing and horseplay all around. It was a fitting opening ceremony for what they hoped would be a long stay at Litwak's Arcade.

Most of the Crowdies (members of the game's background audience) were present at the party, although some had sneaked away in small groups to smoke cigarettes and wander around _Brawl Nation_ aimlessly. They'd all been programmed to do off-hours jobs as well; up-keeping work in the arenas and other manual tasks (although the game's programming automatically fixed some of the more major damage that occurred during a Brawl, such as what Nora had done to the floors and walls of the Fatal Factory Arena earlier that day). But since tonight was a celebration they were all temporarily excused from their duties. They would have to wake up early tomorrow to clean up the Amphi Arena before opening time, but then they would be able to sit back, relax, and cheer on the Brawlers as they beat the living shit out of each other until closing time. It was a decent enough arrangement. None of them had any complaints.

The Brawlers themselves were the life of the party, and the centre of attention. Their spirits were soaring from the excitement and success of the day's Brawls. There were eight Brawlers in total: Harvey Stormer, Mitch Gears, Andy Crater, Bruce Speedslam, Sheila Windblast, May Slice, Lana Bladefury, and—of course—the fascinating Nora Sparks, whose mouth was smiling radiantly throughout the revelries even though her void blind eyes were not.

"We're gonna make this arcade our _bitch!_" Mitch Gears, the explosives expert, shouted at the top of his lungs over the music, and the assembled Brawlers and Crowdies howled with laughter and cheered. Mugs of beer and cider were raised in a massive toast. Nora, who disliked alcohol, had a mug of non-alcoholic apple cider in her hand, but she cheered and toasted with her friends just the same. It had been a gloriously successful first day, she had to admit. She couldn't help but feel light-hearted, especially from all the positive reviews she'd gotten from the gamers. Her lips curved into a smile as she sipped her sweet hot drink.

There were people all around her, but to her they had no faces, no details. She could make out their silhouettes due to their vibrating pixels, but nothing more. Her vision was like a child's colouring book where everything was filled in with black and gray. But she could tell everyone apart from their voices and their distinct smells. They were all familiar voices and smells, so she didn't feel like she was lost and surrounded by strangers. She liked the music that was playing and the cider was piping hot and delicious. At the moment she was happy and content with her situation, her defective vision merely a trifle in the grand scheme of things.

After she'd finished her drink, a half-drunk Bruce attempted to prank her by putting a mug of beer in her hand and telling her that it was another apple cider. He'd overlooked the fact that Nora wasn't a completely imbecile and could instantly tell that it was beer by the smell. She dumped it on his head to the cheers of the crowd and playfully punched his arm afterwards. "Nice try, Bruce."

Bruce took it well, laughing until his cheeks turned red, shaking the beer out of his hair like a wet dog. Sometime later he and Andy picked Nora up, lifted her above their heads, and paraded her around the arena while the partiers cheered some more. Not wanting to be the stick in the mud on the first day, Nora let them do this without complaint, although being off solid ground wasn't exactly her favorite thing in the world.

"This bitch is fucking_ insane_, ya'll!" Andy announced to the raving crowd. "The gamers were drooling like babies over her!"

This passed as a gracious compliment in the world of _Brawl Nation_, so naturally Nora was flattered.

"I'm glad I couldn't see _that!_" the blind Brawler cried. The crowd responded to her joke with roaring laughter.

"You totally _rocked_ their worlds, Sparks!" Mitch called out. "Ha-ha, get it? Because you do cool shit with rocks-"

"_Booooooooooooooooo!" _cried the crowd in response, as they pelted Mitch with crumpled paper napkin balls while he threw his arms over his head in mock cowardice.

"That was lame, Gears. Get new material," Sheila Windblast said, using her air-controlling powers to pelt her fellow Brawler with a small hurricane of napkins balls until they formed a tall pile around his feet.

To Nora's relief, her friends eventually put her back down. The party went on until the early hours of morning, and when two a.m. rolled around Nora began to fade. Some of the Brawlers and Crowdies broke into a bawdy drinking song about a couple who'd made love in the desert wastelands and got dust stuck in all the worst places. Nora tried to sing along and join in on the fun but she found that her heart wasn't in it anymore. She felt exhausted, and her body ached for a bed. Even a lumpy couch with suffice.

"I'm throwing in the towel. I need sleep," she decided. It had been a long first day, and out of all the Brawlers she'd been chosen by the gamers the most times. Her friends would understand if she slipped away. She knew them well enough to guess that this party would last all night, and Nora didn't have the strength for it. She preferred to save as much of her strength as possible for the Brawls.

Following the blended scent of perfume and steel polish she sought out Lana Bladefury, to whom she was closest out of all the Brawlers. Lana and Nora shared an apartment on the ground floor of the Brawl Dorms, where all the Brawlers lived. Lana was sprawled out on one of the bleacher benches, laughing at a Crowdie's dirty joke. She sat upright when she saw Nora approaching.

"What's wrong, hun?" she asked her friend.

"I'm calling it a night."

"But it's only one in the morning!"

"It's two, Lana. Andy just told me."

"Did something happen?" Lana asked. Her tone was suddenly serious and concerned. "Did someone upset you?"

"No one upset me," Nora assured her. "I'm just _tired._"

"I can imagine," said the Crowdie, whose hair was obnoxiously red, although Nora couldn't see it. "You were picked by the gamers twenty-seven times today. I counted. That doesn't even include all the times you were the non-playable opponent. I don't know how you're still standing."

"It's what she was programmed to do, dipshit," Lana told him. "It's what all us Brawlers were programmed to do."

"Yeah, but she had to do it _blind_."

"I was programmed to do that too," Nora put in. "Should I leave the door unlocked for you, Lana? I know how brilliant you are with keys when you're drunk off your ass."

"Answering on the _small_ possibility that I'll go back home at all tonight, _yes please._ But I'm still trudging along, so don't wait up for me. You have a set of keys with you, right?"

"No," Nora responded sarcastically. "I'm going to smash your bedroom window and then climb in through it. _Of course_ I have my keys, Lana."

"And you can, um, find your way back?"

"I can handle it." She had the walk memorized.

"Try not to get lost and wander out into the wastelands, okay?" Lana joked playfully. The wastelands were vast stretches of dust-filled, barren land that surrounded the Brawl community. They were featured in the opening video before each gameplay, showing the gamers the rubble of destroyed buildings and the devastation of the _Brawl Nation_ world. According to the game's backstory, there used to be cities out there until the war had wiped them out.

"I won't," Nora promised. _Never again._ She'd wandered through the wastelands before, when she was a little girl and her family had left her out there alone to die. They'd given her no food or water in the hopes that death would seize her quickly. Death _would_ have found her if Mad Max hadn't found her first.

She gave her friend a goodbye hug and headed home, relying on her memory and her other sharpened senses to get her around obstacles. She made it back to her apartment without managing to trip over or run into anything. True to her promise, she left the door unlocked in case her friend staggered in sometime during the night. Her game's world was still booming with the sounds of the party and she could hear it from inside her bedroom, but all she could think about was sleep.

She stripped down to nothing, too tired to go searching around for pajamas. Bare naked, she climbed into bed, sighing with relief as she stretched out on the soft mattress. In the morning she would be as good as new, ready to take on whatever the gamers had in store for her. She'd been impressed by how quick-thinking a lot of them were. When they controlled her they'd often used moves that she would have used herself if she'd been the non-playable fighter.

"We kicked ass today, Max," Nora thought as she pulled the covers up to her chin. Max wasn't alive anymore (his old age and his injuries from the war had eventually caught up with him, and he died peacefully in his bed when Nora was seventeen while she'd held his hand) but he was with her every time she made a block of earth fly at an opponent or shot up a metal wall to block an attack. She owed everything to the man who'd saved her life and made her into what she was: a champion Brawler.

"Night, Max," she whispered, before closing her eyes and sleeping deeply and dreamlessly until an hour before the arcade opened the next day.

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**End of Chapter **

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"When is she going to meet Ralph and the others?" you all cry out impatiently. To this I respond, "Soon, my friends, SOON. I just needed to get a little character development out of my system, and then the_ real_ fun can begin!"

Please review.


	3. Sunglasses at Night

You (thankfully) can't see it but I'm doing a dorky happy dance right now because JUST LOOK AT ALL THE FOLLOWERS AND PEOPLE WHO FAVORITED THIS THING! I love you all! *Blows kisses*

Man, this chapter was a_ beast_ to write. Before we begin, I'd like to make a statement regarding the two reviews who gave their opinions about Nora's appearance: _Yeeeeaaaahhhh_, she probably looks a lot better in my head, although I purposely downplayed the description of her appearance. I've gone back and edited it a bit in the first chapter, but it's still pretty low-key. Her appearance is not really a huge part of who she is as a person. She's never seen her own reflection, and she truly does not give a rat's ass about what she looks like. Considering the rough-and-tumble job she has, this is probably a good thing.

(An extra note: I've actually considered trying to draw Nora, but there's the problematic issue of me being a completely sucky artist. But for anyone who wants a sort of mental image, look up a picture of Akira Satou from _Katawa Shoujo._ That's basically Nora's hairstyle, if you imagine one half of the hair as green and the other half as blue. Hey, if the _Sugar Rush_ racers can have colorful hair, why can't my Brawler?)

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**Chapter Three: Sunglasses at Night**

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In a time span of two weeks, _Brawl Nation_ had become one of the most popular games in the arcade, rivalled only by beloved long-timers such as _Pac-Man_, _Sugar Rush_, and _Fix-It Felix Jr._ The gamers loved everything about it, but they especially loved the Brawlers, whose fighting abilities and ferocity ignited the same devotion the gamers felt towards the fandoms they belonged to outside of the arcade, such as _Avatar: The Last Airbender_ and _X-Men._

But a special place in their hearts was carved out for Nora Sparks. There was something about seeing a skinny blind girl dominate all six of _Brawl Nation's_ gloriously bizarre arenas that gave the gamers a glimmer of hope. If she could overcome her flaws and fearlessly take on the world, why couldn't they? They felt like real champions when they played as her, and a lot of them wished that she was real so they could ask her some of the thousands of questions they had swimming in their video game-loving minds.

What they didn't know was that Nora Sparks was very much real, and she would have gladly answered all their questions if she'd been allowed to. Their words of praise gave _her_ a glimmer of hope as well. But just like the rest of the arcade she lived under the sacred rule of silence during work hours. The gamers had their world and the arcade had theirs. The brick walls between them had to be kept standing, if reluctantly.

When the arcade closed, and the gamers went home, the _Brawl Nation _characters went wild, running around their own game or venturing out into the Game Central Station to see what diversions awaited them there. They were now a part of the arcade community, although attitudes towards them were mixed. Some characters took a liking to them right away, while others thought that they were a bunch of foul-mouthed delinquents who were no better than the annoying teenage gamers who frequented the arcade. And then there was the extra ingredient of jealousy that turned some characters against the Brawlers from the very beginning, mostly from the other combat games in the arcade. Luckily no off-hours fights had broken out yet, but then again, it had only been two weeks…

"Speedslam and Crater _nearly _knocked heads with those _Street Fighter_ guys the other day," Lana told Nora as they entered _Tapper _on Saturday night. Sheila Windblast was with them, though the fourth female Brawler May Slice had declined the outing. "They didn't start it. The _Street Fighter_ guys did. Nothing went down, though."

"Well, _there's_ a silver lining," Nora replied yawningly, pushing her sunglasses up her nose. She'd quickly taken to wearing a large pair of black plastic shades whenever she left _Brawl Nation_, for various reasons. So far no one had come up to _her _to try and start a fight, but that's because they were too busy feeling sorry for her because she was blind. She would have much rather preferred a fight.

_Tapper_ was crowded that night, and it was difficult for the _Brawl Nation_ ladies to find places to sit. However, Lana managed to get three _Hero's Duty_ soldiers to surrender their seats after effectively flirting with them. The soldiers had been trained to fight Cy-Bugs on a regular basis, but they were no match for a pretty young woman's charms.

"Knife-throwing isn't my _only _skill, you know," she told her friends right before the barkeeper appeared to take their order: beer for Lana and Sheila, a root beer for Nora, and a big plate of sweet potato fries for all three of them to share, with spicy dipping sauce.

"If this arcade ever gets a game with a seduction theme, you can game-jump," Nora suggested after the barkeeper left. "You'd be the top name on the roster in days."

"And leave you fuckers to fend for yourselves? Not likely!" Lana exclaimed with a ringing laugh. "I'm a one-game gal!"

Their food and drinks arrived, and Sheila immediately pulled out one of her sketchbooks to doodle in-between sips of beer, leaving Lana and Nora to talk about life in the arcade between themselves. Many pairs of eyes in _Tapper _sneaked glances at the seated Brawlers, particularly at the glasses on Nora's face. Nora couldn't see their stares, but she could hear many of them whisper the word _blind._

Outside of _Brawl Nation_ no one knew what to think of her, or how to act around her. A blind video game character was too foreign a concept for them to comprehend. The fact that she was a professional fighter was hand-waved by everyone. All they could see was her disability. At first Nora just ignored it, but it was slowly started to creep up on her. It was like lying awake in bed at night while a faucet dripped somewhere. _Drip, drip drip. Blind, blind, blind…_

Whenever she walked by herself or with friends through the Game Central Station she could hear the people in the crowd moving quickly out of her way. She could hear the shuffling feet, the muttering voices, thrashing together like an orchestra in her ears.

"It's the blind girl," she heard them whisper to each other, their tones thick with sickening pity. "Move over, you idiot! Let her pass!"

She absolutely hated it when someone in the Station approached her and tried to lead her by the arm through the crowds, thinking that they were helping her. One thing Nora Sparks couldn't stand was strangers touching her without her permission, and her whole body cringed whenever a hand or a claw or a tentacle took hold of her, regardless of how gentle the unseen being's touch was. She always yanked her arm away and told whoever it was to back off. She wasn't a small child. She could get_ herself_ around, thank you very much! She didn't have eyesight, but she had her other senses _and _her instincts, which was all she needed.

The Surge Protector quickly became one of her least favourite people in the arcade. He'd never dealt with a blind character before, and he was convinced that she was going to accidently wander into one of the more dangerous games and die. No matter how many times Nora tried to explain to him that she was programmed to sense danger and avoid obstacles without eyesight (and that she would be able to figure out pretty quickly if she'd entered a game that wasn't _Brawl Nation_), he still wouldn't leave her alone.

Due to her "condition" (as he liked to call it) he kept urging her to stay within the _Brawl Nation_ world for her own safety, which earned him plenty of sarcastic replies. Luckily the security guard never tried to electrocute her. Even though he was a colossal jackass, he had standards, and electrocuting a woman—let alone a woman who was _blind_—was against his principles.

"So chivalry isn't dead after all," Lana joked.

"A part of me wishes that he _would _shock me," Nora said. "It would give me an excuse to rip out a piece of the floor and hit him with it. But alas, that would require him to grow a pair first."

"This arcade is full of narrow-minded morons," Lana told her friend. "You can't let it get to you."

"I won't," Nora replied, nibbling daintily on a sweet potato fry. "But it's so…_irritating_."

"So is a butt itch. But you scratch it and then you forget about it. Do the same thing with this."

"Such poetic wisdom," Sheila sarcastically put in, not looking up from the sketchbook in front of her. She was ferociously scribbling down some notes before she forgot them. She and Mitch Gears were currently collaborating on an after-hours project to pass time; a hang glider that Shelia could use to fly around the _Brawl Nation _skies at super speed. The biggest obstacle was making it light enough to fly but strong enough to bear the force of Shelia's powerful windblasts without breaking.

"_You _come up with something better," Lana snapped at her, jabbing a well-manicured fingernail into Sheila's arm. The air-controlling Brawler could feel it through her brown bomber jacket.

Sheila looked up at last, her deep green eyes flashing with annoyance. "Point that thing somewhere else. And yes, I _do_ have something better. Nora, you're an adult, and a champion Brawler! You have us, and the gamers love you! That's all that matters! You haven't come this far to let a bunch of ignorant little shits get you down. So learn to suck it up and bear it, because I can tell you now that as long as you're blind, no one outside of _Brawl Nation_ is going to change their minds about you. That's the cold truth."

"That was fucking _terrible_, Windblast! What the hell is wrong with you?" Lana cried. She turned to Nora. "You alright?"

"I'm fine," Nora muttered. She was used to Sheila's brutal honesty, and she had to admit that there was plenty of truth in her words. "Thanks, Shelia. You're right. I'm a big girl and I should learn to cope."

"You will," Sheila told her reassuringly, a little smile playing on her lips. "We Brawlers have iron in our coding. You have more of it than any of us, Sparks. You'll be fine."

She returned to her sketching, and Nora could hear the scratching of her pen against the paper. She would never be able to see what Sheila was drawing, nor would she be able to see the glider when it was finally built. Lana signalled to the barkeeper to bring over a second round of drinks, despite Nora's mug of now lukewarm root beer still being half-full. Nora sat quietly for a few minutes, tracing a finger around the rim of her mug, before a pressing need made her excuse herself from the table.

"You have to pee _already?_ But you've barely touched your drink!" Lana cried, laughing. "The washrooms are right behind you. Just keep walking forwards and then take a right."

"I can handle it," Nora replied. She couldn't help but notice how often she used that phrase.

"Just as a reminder, the men's washroom is the one that smells _worse_," Sheila spoke up. "Go through the _other_ door."

"Thank you, Sheila. I will remember that," Nora replied dryly. She left the table and headed for the washrooms while a trail of whispers followed her._ Blind, blind, blind. Move out of the way, it's the blind girl. Does she even know where she's going? _

She made it to the washrooms, through the women's door and into one of the stalls, where she relieved herself of most of the liquid she'd drunk that afternoon. Bottles of water chugged quickly in-between gameplays, and half a mug of root beer. All of the Brawlers had bladders like camels to help get them through the day but they could only hold out for so long, and Nora was no exception.

She felt better when she was finished. Maybe it was all the liquid in her bladder that had been making her so cranky before. But even if it wasn't, Nora was still in a lighter mood by the time she'd dried her hands with a paper towel and pulled her gloves back on.

However, her mood was dampened as soon as she was back out in the hallway, because someone bumped into her from behind, hard. She fell forward onto her hands and knees, and her sunglasses flew off her face and landed somewhere. She could hear two drunken, girly voices giggling behind her, and then the scampering of retreating feet. Nora swore aloud.

"_And now I've lost my only pair of shades," _she inwardly growled as she began crawling around the floor, searching for them. _Now_ she looked like a true blind woman, pathetic and helpless because she couldn't find something. She was lucky that Sheila couldn't see her now, or else her friend might take back what she'd said about her having iron in her coding. She couldn't even keep a damn pair of sunglasses on her face!

* * *

In the men's washroom Ralph dried his hands as quickly as he could, which was difficult considering how large they were. He'd left Vanellope alone back at their usual spot at _Tapper_, spinning merrily on a barstool while he went off to urinate once before they left. It was getting late, and he wanted to get her safely back to _Sugar Rush_ so that she could rest, dismissing her protests against being tired at all. It had been a long week for both of them and they'd already been out since closing time, goofing around in _Paper Boy _before coming to _Tapper_ for ice-cold sodas, a usual Saturday night for the Bad Guy and the racer.

Before they'd arrived at the restaurant Ralph had walked halfway across Game Central Station before realizing that he had a piece of newspaper stuck to his butt, which his giggling little friend had decided not to tell him about. Then she decreed that Paper Butt would be added to the long list of nicknames she already had for him_._ Ralph shook his head and grinned when he replayed the scene in his head, tossing a big wad of crumpled paper towels into the garbage.

Before leaving the washroom he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror. He saw a smiling face, one that he'd become used to since the Turbo incident. The reflection's smile widened a little, and Ralph stood staring until he remembered that his friend was waiting for him. He saluted his grinning reflection once before leaving the washroom.

He was greeted with a surprising sight when he pushed the door open. It was a young woman on her hands and knees, crawling around the _Tapper_ floor, obviously searching for something in desperation. Ralph, who'd been in the arcade longer than most, didn't recognize her nor could he guess what game she was from. During the past two weeks things had been too hectic in _Fix-It Felix Jr._ for anyone to give the arrival of _Brawl Nation_ much thought. Of course there'd been a rumour flung around here and there, but everyone's attention was focused mostly on Nicelanders Gene and Mary. After many years of dating on and off, Gene had finally decided that he'd had enough. After gathering up his courage, he proposed to Mary, and she had tearfully accepted. Now wedding plans were fast in motion.

"_Everyone's getting married,"_ Ralph had thought when the official announcement was made, to the utter joy of all the _Fix-It Felix Jr._ inhabitants and their friends. Ralph was very happy for Gene and Mary, and he'd already been guaranteed a spot in the wedding party as a groomsman. Always the groomsman and never the groom, but he could live with that, he supposed…

The girl kept crawling around, not noticing the nine-foot tall man standing near her. Ralph tried to catch a glimpse of her face, but her long green and blue bangs were covering up a good portion of it. It occurred to Ralph that perhaps she was from that popular new combat game, suddenly remembering some of the things he'd heard in-between sessions of brainstorming for Gene's bachelor party. He knew that all the characters were young adults, and this girl fit the description. She looked a bit too small for _any_ sort of combat, but Ralph knew from watching Felix and Vanellope what small people were capable of.

She looked like she needed assistance, and Ralph hesitated for a moment before clearing his throat. Most people in the arcade didn't like accepting help from him, due to his intimidating stature and Bad Guy status, but he hoped that there was at least_ something_ he could do for her. "Excuse me, miss?"

Startled by the sound of his voice, the girl sharply sucked in her breath and looked up at him with clear blue-gray eyes. They were very strikingly beautiful eyes, though there was something not quite right about them. They looked strangely empty, like crystal glass orbs, while the rest of her comely face was bright and healthy-looking. Still, there was something fascinating about those eyes, and Ralph couldn't help but stare into them, though he found no signs of emotion at all. He waited for her to scream at the sight of him, but instead she just stared vacantly at him for a few seconds before giving a frustrated sigh. "I've been in this arcade for _two weeks _and I've already lost my shades. They're around here somewhere, though. Have you seen them?"

Ralph blinked in surprise. She wasn't scared of him? Well, _this_ was a nice change. "No, but do you want me to help you look for them?"

"Could you? That would be _great_," the girl replied gratefully. Ralph offered a hand to help her up off the floor, but she pulled herself up without even looking at it. He was a bit taken aback by her rudeness, but at least she hadn't screamed. He couldn't have it all, he supposed. And he'd already promised to help her find her glasses.

The girl stood and waited while Ralph searched around the hallway for a couple of minutes before finally finding a pair of black plastic sunglasses lodged behind a potted tree.

"Found them," he said aloud, wondering how in the arcade they'd ended up there. When he reached down for them he accidently bumped the tree with his knee. It tipped over, the soil from the pot spilling all over the floor. "Heh heh…_whoops._ Hold on…"

He tried to pick up the tree to put it back upright, but it snapped in half in his hand. Ralph's cheeks flushed and he gave a frustrated growl. Why couldn't he do someone a simple favour without _wrecking something_? He bit his bottom lip and looked up at the girl, expecting to see her meanly roll those crystal eyes at him for his clumsiness.

She didn't. "You alright?" she asked him. There was a slightly worried smile on her lips.

"Um, y-yes," he answered, looking away from her face in embarrassment. He set the rest of the tree back upright and stuck the dismembered half into the soil that was still left in the pot. "The tree's not gonna be alright, though."

"Alas, poor tree. Ye will be sorely mourned," the girl joked, and Ralph couldn't help but smile at her easy-going nature. But then he remembered the glasses. He looked down, and to his horror he discovered that they were now lying underneath a small pile of dirt.

"I can, um, wash those for you," Ralph said sheepishly, feeling like a complete imbecile as he carefully plucked them out of the little pile of dirt between two of his massive fingers.

"Wash what?" she asked, idly scratching her nose. "Oh, you mean the glasses? Nah, give em' here."

She held out a hand, clad in a fingerless glove, and Ralph had no choice but to place the soiled sunglasses in it. She swiped a finger across the hinge and rubbed a bit of dirt between her forefinger and thumb. Ralph watched her in confusion, wondering why she was smiling like that. Then all of a sudden, there was a little _poof _sound and the glasses instantly became spotless, a little puff of dirt particles floating above them. The puff flew right around the startled giant and landed neatly in the plant pot. Then the rest of the spilled soil flew back into the pot as well, leaving not a single speck behind on _Tapper's_ floor.

"Did I get it all?" she asked him nonchalantly.

"How...how d-did you….?" Ralph sputtered, unable to believe what he'd just witnessed. He looked bewilderedly at the dirt in the pot and back at the girl, who was now smirking at him, although not unkindly.

"Earth-controlling powers, courtesy of the programmers," she explained, as if it were a perfectly normal thing. She smoothly slid the clean glasses back onto her face. "I was trained to use my powers for fighting, but I know a few little parlour tricks as well. I just saved the barkeep the trouble of having to get a broom."

"_So she is from the new combat game,"_ Ralph thought. He said aloud, "That's amazing!"

She gave an indifferent shrug. "Yeah, I guess. Hey, thanks for your help! I'm Nora, by the way. Nora Sparks. I hail from _Brawl Nation_."

"I'm Ralph. Wreck-It Ralph," he replied. "And I, um, hail from _Fix-It Felix Jr_. Nice to meet you."

"Right back atcha. You're a lifesaver, Ralph," Nora told him. She tapped the shades sitting on her face with a slender white finger. "I never would have found these suckers on my own."

"Why's that?" he asked. It seemed strange to him that she could make soil particles move without lifting a finger, but she couldn't find a simple pair of sunglasses on her own.

A silent pause followed his question. The girl cleared her throat.

"I'm…_blind_," she answered slowly, her mouth curving into an awkward little half-smile. "I'm…uh, surprised you didn't know that already. I thought it was pretty obvious."

Ralph's whole body froze with shock, and his mouth dropped open. He gaped at her with a gawking, flabbergasted expression, which he was lucky that she couldn't see. Of course he'd heard the rumours that the new combat game had a blind character, but he hadn't wanted to believe them. Now the evidence was here, standing right in front of him, smiling at him.

"_What cruel programmers would make a character blind?"_ Ralph asked himself, completely horrified. He didn't know what he should say now, but he couldn't just stand there in silence, staring at her like she was a zoo exhibit. At least now he knew that she hadn't deliberately snubbed him when he'd offered her his hand earlier. She just hadn't seen it.

"A coin for your thoughts, Ralph?" Nora teased him, having guessed that he was currently going through shock mode, even though she couldn't see it.

"I-I…"

"You'll have to do better than that if you want a coin." Her tone was light-hearted.

"I'm sorry," he said quickly, blushing madly. The Bad Guy wished that a giant hole would appear beneath his feet and swallow him. "I don't mean to be rude, it's just that—"

"You don't know how to react to a blind character?"

Ralph sighed and looked ashamed. "That's pretty much it. Again, I'm sorry."

"The rest of the arcade doesn't know how to react to me either," Nora told him, pushing the sunglasses up the bridge of her nose. "You've done a lot better than most. A lot of people around here seem to be under the impression that _blind _is a synonym for _stupid._ At least you're not talking to me like I'm five or trying to pull me around the Game Central Station by the arm. A lot of people think that I'll get lost and die somewhere if someone isn't chaperoning me at all times."

"People have done that to you?" Ralph asked, although somehow this didn't surprise him (at least not nearly as much as the revelation of Nora's disability had).

Nora nodded. "Yup, and people also jump out of my way when I walk through the Station. No one wants to harm a hair on my poor little head. If we go outside I can show you."

"You don't have to show me," Ralph replied, sighing sadly. "People jump out of my way too, but not because they feel sorry for me. It's because they're afraid of me."

"Why?" Nora asked. "What did you do?"

"Nothing except _exist_," Ralph said, not hiding the bitterness in his tone.

"Well, that's just stupid! You seem like a normal guy," Nora said. With a friendly, playful smile she added, "If a bit on the big side. I can _sort of_ see your outline, and your voice is coming from _waaaay_ above my head. How tall are you?"

Ralph opened his mouth to answer her inquiry, but he was interrupted by a younger, shriller voice, belonging to a tiny form clad in a princess's gown that had now appeared in the hallway. "Hey, Paper Butt! Did you _die _out here or something? You've been gone for, like, twenty minutes! It doesn't take that long to tinkle!"

Nora snickered while Ralph's cheeks burned with embarrassment. His heart sank as well, because as much as he adored the mouthy munchkin, he knew that she was bound to say something insulting to his new acquaintance, even if the insult wasn't intentional.

As if on cue, Vanellope cried, "Hey lady, whatcha wearing sunglasses for? We're _indoors_, ya know!"

"Vanellope…" Ralph growled warningly, but Nora placed a subduing hand on his arm, a silent way of telling him that she wasn't offended. The leather of her glove felt smooth, and her fingers were warm.

"The kid's got a point," she joked, taking her hand away. The blind woman didn't need to see Vanellope to figure out that she was a kid. "I kind of look like a tool, don't I?"

"Of course you don't look like a—"

"What happened to that tree?" Vanellope asked, pointing at it. Unfortunately, Nora's powers couldn't do anything for the broken plant, which Ralph had snapped like a twig. "Why's it broken like that?"

"A wizard did it," Nora answered before Ralph could think of an excuse. "You just missed him."

"Aw, _man_!" the little girl cried out. "What did he look like?!"

"Vanellope, this is Nora Sparks," Ralph spoke up quickly, eager to steer this conversation towards a more normal path. "She's from _Brawl Nation._ Nora, this is Vanellope von Schweetz, President of _Sugar Rush._"

"President?" Nora cocked a surprised eyebrow. "How old are you, kiddo?"

"Nine, with extra baggage," Vanellope answered. "I've been nine for a_ looooong_ time. So you're from that new fighting game?"

"Yup."

"Does your game actually have a blind character?" Ralph's face went pale at Vanellope's question. "I've heard that you guys have one, but why would a bunch of programmers make a character blind?"

"I'd like to ask them that myself," Nora remarked. "_I'm_ the blind character."

Vanellope gasped loudly, her big hazel eyes nearly popping out of her face. _"NO WAY! That's __**incredible!**__ How do you fight? How do you get around? Do you have one of those walking canes? Where is it? Do you hit people with it? Is there a sharp thingy on the end you can use to—?"_

"Kid, that's enough," Ralph scolded her sternly, even though he was also wondering how Nora held her own in a fight. What else could her powers do?

"I can get around without a walking cane," Nora answered the excitable little racer. "But if I had one, I would probably weaponize it."

"But how do you fight, then?!" Vanellope asked, grabbing Nora's hand and tugging on it before pleading, "Come back with us to our table and tell us everything!"

"We're about to go _home_, Vanellope," Ralph reminded her. "And Nora doesn't have to—"

"I'd love to," Nora said, patting Vanellope's tiny hand. "But my own friends are waiting for me. By now they're probably thinking that _I_ died. Next time, though."

"Do you promise?" Vanellope asked anxiously.

"Yes, kiddo, I promise."

"And you'll tell us everything?"

"Yes," Nora repeated. Turning to Ralph, she added, "Unless your big brother has any issues with that."

Vanellope laughed aloud. "Ralphie's not my brother! Well, he _kind of_ is."

"You're very lucky to have him," Nora said. Next to her, Ralph's cheeks flushed a little, and a small smile tugged at the corners of his lips as he bashfully lowered his eyes. "I've been coming to _Tapper_ most nights to hang out. Next time I run into you guys, I'll tell you all about myself. And you guys can tell me _your_ stories. Deal?"

"Deal!" Vanellope echoed, finally letting go of Nora's hand. "It was nice meeting you!"

"Right back atcha, kiddo. And you too, Ralph, though I already said that…" Nora said. "Well, safe trip home, guys! Goodnight!"

"Goodnight!" Vanellope said, her child's face beaming.

"Goodnight," Ralph echoed, his voice coming out a bit more uneasy than he'd hoped it would. "Safe trip home...Nora..."

She left them then, heading back down the hallway, but when she reached the end of it she suddenly stopped. She turned her head to face them. "Hey, Ralph?"

The light at the end of the hallway gave her white skin a gentle glow and bounced off her colorful hair. Her smiling lips looked rosy, like a tiny pink flower basking in sunlight. None of this escaped the notice of the Bad Guy, and his lips parted slightly as his gaze took in the soft symmetry of her face, which looked perfect even with the sunglasses covering most of it. "Yes?"

"I just remembered! I still owe you a coin," Nora told him. "For your thoughts. Remind me next time we _see_ each other!"

She lifted up her glasses and winked at him with one of those crystal eyes, and Ralph felt a strange fluttering in his chest. Then she was gone, disappearing around the corner and into the _Tapper_ crowd.

"She is seriously _cool!_" Vanellope exclaimed. "I like her!"

"Me too," Ralph answered, a little too quickly. The fluttering had yet to cease and there was a tender, dreamy look on the Bad Guy's face, which intrigued his little racer friend, who quickly formed a good idea of what the cause was. She recognized that look. It was the same one that donned Felix's features whenever his wife Sergeant Calhoun was around.

"What's wrong, Paper Butt? Are you _blinded_ by her beauty?"

"_Vanellope…" _

Ralph and Vanellope thought that Nora was out of earshot, but her sharp sense of hearing had picked up what they said, and she smiled to herself as she successfully manoeuvred her way through the crowd back to her table.

"What happened to you?" Lana asked as Nora climbed back onto her seat. "That was like, a twenty-five minute piss! By the way, there's a fresh root beer right in front of you."

"Sorry," Nora said. "And thanks." She picked up the mug and brought it to her lips. Ice-cold and sweet, absolutely perfect.

"Seriously, though, what were you up to back there, Sparks?" Sheila asked, tapping her pen against the table as she read over something she had just written in her sketchbook.

"Making an amazing discovery," Nora answered her friend. "Not _everyone_ in this arcade is an ignorant little shit."

"Ah-ha! See! There we go!" Lana cried out enthusiastically. "There's your silver lining!"

"Yup," Nora said, smiling as she sipped her root beer. Her sunglasses shone on her face, and her cheeks glowed. _My silver lining…_

If only she knew what silver looked like.

* * *

**End of Chapter**

* * *

Oh, Nora. If only you knew how utterly adorable your "silver" is.

Please review!


	4. Codes and Coding

Hey, guess what? I'm not dead! Happy day!

Here's a fourth chapter to keep you all sated before I disappear for a little while to get exams done. Before we begin, I'd like to give a special shout out to my new online pal **KoutaDragara**, who drew me some _drop-dead gorgeous_ fan art for this story! I tried to upload her drawing of Nora as this story's title page, but this site hates me and won't let me do it. I can assure you, though, that my friend Kouta captured my vision of Nora _perfectly._ It's actually scary how good it is. She's also been helping me brainstorm for future chapters. I dedicate _this_ chapter to you, Kouta!

Another shout out to **lilpurplebird**, the author of the glorious WIR story "Mag Mell." She's given me some great feedback as well! For all of you followers and reviewers out there...THANK YOU FROM THE BOTTOM OF MY NERDY HEART for all of your support! Writing this story has been so much fun so far, and all of you have just made it so much better!

* * *

**Chapter Four: Codes and Coding**

* * *

Nora crossed her arms and tapped the sole of her boot impatiently while she waited for the Surge Protector to finish searching through her backpack. It was an hour after closing time on Sunday night and the Brawler had barely taken three steps out into the Game Central Station before being affronted by the meddlesome security guard. As usual he had given her a sound rebuking for being outside of _Brawl Nation_ by herself, which Nora had only pretended to listen to. He then ordered her to surrender her backpack to him so he could give it a thorough inspection. Nora had reluctantly done so and now deeply regretted it, since he was taking his sweet time checking every pocket thrice.

There wasn't much for the Protector to find. There was some money, a set of house keys, a packet of tissues, and a heavy book. No weapons, no food. The security guard leafed through the book and raised a quizzical eyebrow as he scrutinized the pages. "There aren't any words in this. What are all these bumps and holes for? Is it some kind of…code?"

"It's braille."

The Surge Protector looked up at her in confusion. "It's _what?_"

"Braille," Nora repeated slowly as she leaned back against a wall. All she wanted was to go to _Tapper, _drink a cold soda, and read her book in peace, but the Surge Protector was evidently determined to prevent her from enjoying those perfectly innocent activities. She guessed that he wasn't going to let her go anytime soon, so she might as well make herself comfortable. "They're _my_ words."

The security guard demanded an explanation, which Nora gladly delivered. She gave him a brief summary of what braille was and quickly demonstrated how she read with her fingers while he held the book open for her. But even after she'd finished her demonstration, the Protector was still suspicious. He was always suspicious of anything that he couldn't understand, and the little dots (and whatever words they formed) were a mystery to _him_ if not to her. Once he'd made Turbo from _Turbo-Time_ empty out his pockets during a random security check, and he made the mistake of not confiscating that _Tapper_ bar napkin with the strange code written on it. He'd let Turbo walk away with that napkin, thinking that it wasn't anything important. Now that the Protector knew what the late racer had used it for, he was determined not to make the same mistake twice.

The blind woman claimed that it was just a book of poetry, but it was possible that she was lying to him. She'd given him more than her fair share of defiance and sass ever since her game got plugged in, even though he was only trying to do his job. She continuously ignored his pleas for her to stay inside her own game and kept wandering out on her own as if she were deliberately mocking him. She called him an oppressor, but he really had her game's best interests at heart. It would weigh heavily on his conscience if _Brawl Nation_ got unplugged because its blind leading character had gone out for a stroll outside of her game and died in some spontaneous accident that he couldn't have prevented. But the Brawler was not concerned for the Protector's conscience, nor did she pay any heed to the Station's rule about bringing suspectable items from one game to another.

"I think I'm going to hang on to this for now," the Protector informed her, cautiously closing the book and holding it in his glowing blue hands.

"No, you're not!" Nora snapped angrily, her cheeks burning red below her sunglasses. "That book was a gift from someone. It belongs to _me_, so hand it over!"

"I'll return it to you as soon as I've investigated this matter further," he told her, unmoved by her fury.

"You'll return it to me _now_," the Brawler demanded. "There's nothing to investigate!"

"Miss Sparks, you can't just go around carrying books filled with unusual codes. There was an incident before—"

"Unusual codes?! I _just _explained to you what braille is! Did someone rip your ear drums out?!"

The Surge Protector sighed, as if he were listening to the complaints of a child. "A man in this arcade once used an unusual code to hijack an entire game. I just want to be _certain_ that you're not a—"

"That I'm not a _what? _A hacker?" Nora asked him, her tone as sharp as a blade. "You think I'm a hacker? Here's a bit of _logic_ for you, buddy! How can I hack into another game's programming _if I can't even see it?!"_

This made the Surge Protector pause. He hadn't thought of that. His silence made the Brawler smile victoriously, since she guessed that the guard couldn't come up with an answer to her question. Maybe common sense was finally paying him a visit. She tried to snatch the book out of his hands, but he quickly stepped out of her reach.

"You insist that this book is for leisure-reading," the Surge began, holding the thick volume behind his back. "But why must you venture outside of your game to read it? There must surely be a quiet place in _Brawl Nation_ for you to enjoy your...poems."

"Not _this_ again," she snarled at him. "I'm not listening to this! When are you going to get it through your thick skull? _I can leave my game when I freaking want to!_"

"Miss Sparks, your condition—"

"Give me back my book and get out of my face," she spat at him acidly. "And I'll take my _condition_ elsewhere and you can go give someone else a hard time about how the programmers made them!"

The Surge Protector looked shamefaced for a few seconds before his expression turned into a stern glare. "I wouldn't _have_ to give you a hard time if you would just cooperate—_HEY!"_

Someone standing behind him had just snatched Nora's book out of his hands while he'd been distracted. The Surge angrily turned around to see Vanellope von Schweetz standing before him in all her pink and sugary glory, protectively clutching the volume to her chest and fixing him with an icy stare. At once the security guard's demeanor changed. "Your...your Highness!"

"That's _Miss President_ to you, bub," Vanellope snapped. "Or should I say_ thief?_ What do you want with Nora's book?"

"I'm not stealing it from her," the guard gently assured the little girl, crouching down so that he was closer to her height level. "I'm just going to hold on to it for a little while for security reasons. I promise that I'll give it back to her as soon as I'm done with it. Okay?"

"Your promises are _baloney!_" the child cried, tightening her grip on the book. "You promised that you wouldn't bug Ralph with your stupid random security checks anymore, but you stopped him outside of _Pac-Man_ on Thursday! He wasn't even stealing anything!"

"You harass Ralph too?" Nora asked the Protector. She placed her hands on her hips. "Why does that not surprise me?"

The Surge Protector stood upright again and let out a frustrated groan. "Can't a man do his job anymore?!" he cried out.

"If you did your job _well_, none of us would have any complaints," Vanellope exclaimed sharply. "But you treat everyone like they're criminals or invalids! It's not fair!"

"You should listen to the kid," Nora told him, throwing a grateful smile in the direction of Vanellope's voice.

"_No,"_ the Surge Protector growled. "Both of you should listen to _me! _I was created to run this Station, and I'm going to run it _my_ way, just like I always have!"

"Yeah, and just look at your _fantastic_ results," Vanellope replied sarcastically. "No one respects you, and you're taking things away from a blind lady. Speaking of which, here's your book back, Nora!"

Vanellope stepped around the Protector to hand Nora back her book, but the furious security guard wasn't ready to back down from this fight just yet. When the book was back in Nora's hands, the security guard hastily reached out to snatch it back, but the Brawler moved her arm and his hand accidently seized her wrist. The book fell to the floor and Vanellope screamed as her friend was electrocuted.

Nora's whole body flashed blue and she felt the sharp jolt of raw electricity charge through her like an angry bull, though she didn't cry out in pain. She was a Brawler and she was programmed to handle pain. It felt just like one of Harvey Stormer's lightning attacks, so Nora waited for it to pass like she always did in her game. It stung quite a bit, but Nora wasn't going to give the Surge Protector the satisfaction of knowing that it did.

The Protector quickly pulled back his hand, and the Brawler stood frozen like a statue for a few seconds while her coding worked speedily to subdue the stinging. Both Vanellope and the blue guard stared at her with their mouths hanging open. Vanellope was astonished, while the Protector was horrified. In all his years as a security guard he'd never electrocuted a woman before, not even a female villain. He was a man with old-fashioned values, and he believed in courtesy towards the fairer sex. He'd just broken his own rule, though he'd never intended to shock Nora in the first place.

"Nora! Are you okay?!" Vanellope cried, anxiously clasping her gloved hands in front of her.

Nora flinched once before a calm smile appeared on her face. "Yeah, kiddo, I'm fine. Why wouldn't I be?"

Now it was the Protector's turn to be astonished. Whenever he shocked someone they usually howled or fainted. What sort of coding did this girl have, for her to shake it off like it was nothing?

Nora's sunglasses had fallen off during the electric shock, and Vanellope picked them up off the floor for her. The little President also collected the rest of the Brawler's things, including the book. The Surge Protector didn't bother to stop her this time. He was too busy wallowing in his own guilt, dumbfoundment, and embarrassment. "Miss Sparks, I-I apologize..."

Nora thought about what she'd said to Lana Bladefury the night before, about how she would use her powers to rip out a hunk of the floor and beat the Surge Protector with it if he ever shocked her. It would be incredibly easy for her to do, but after a few moments of careful consideration she decided that he wasn't worth the small amount of effort. Besides, a nine-year old girl was standing right there and Nora wanted to spare her the sight.

"I got your stuff, Nora," Vanellope told her, pressing the strap of the backpack against Nora's hand so that the blind woman would know that it was there. Nora thanked her and slung the backpack over one shoulder.

"We'll be going now," Nora coldly informed the Protector. _"If that's alright with **you?"**_

Forgetting that she was blind, the Surge Protector foolishly nodded.

"He says yes," Vanellope said. She seized Nora's hand and led her into the tumult of the Game Central Station, away from the stupefied Protector, who was frozen in place.

"Where do you wanna go?" Vanellope asked Nora as they walked through the Station. Vanellope kept a firm grip on Nora's hand, but the Brawler didn't mind being led around by the girl. Vanellope wasn't a stranger and she was already quite fond of the kid, even though they'd only just met each other yesterday.

"I was on my way to _Tapper _before our esteemed Head of Security stopped me," Nora replied with a bitter tone. "I'm not sure how much you saw, but I kind of lost my cool back there. I feel awful about it, but he drives me _insane!"_

"Don't feel bad," Vanellope told her. "He drives _everyone_ insane. Here we are!"

They stopped in front of the _Tapper_ entrance and Vanellope looked up at her new friend. She let out a giggle. "Your hair's all funky, Nora!"

"It is?" The Brawler reached up with both hands and touched her hair. The Surge Protector's electric shock had made her hair stick up in several directions. That never happened when Harvey hit her with _his_ lightning, but Nora supposed that _Brawl Nation's_ programming made everyone look good on the console screen no matter what they were hit with. "Weird."

"Kneel down and I'll fix it for you!" Vanellope commanded, and the smiling young woman obeyed her. Vanellope's hands smoothed the Brawler's green and blue hair back into place, her little fingers daintily arranging the tresses as if she were a genteel girl arranging flowers. When she was finished, she stepped back to admire her work. "Good as new! You have really pretty hair, Nora."

"Thanks, Vanellope," Nora said, using the kid's real name for the first time. Unfortunately, the only compliment she could offer in return was that Vanellope smelled nice, which was true. The girl floated around in a delicious-smelling cloud of peppermint, vanilla, and licorice, which reminded Nora of the sweet perfumes and body lotions her friend Lana was fond of. Nora herself never used anything other than a simple bar of soap and apple-scented shampoo. After a long day of Brawling she always ended up reeking of dirt and sweat, so she didn't place much importance on smelling good all the time.

"You smell nice too," Vanellope responded, to Nora's surprise. Then the little girl threw her arms around Nora's neck, enveloping her with that scented cloud. "It's so good to see you again! It feels like only yesterday that we last saw each other! Ha-ha, get it? Because it _was_ yesterday!"

Nora laughed and hugged the girl back. Her knees pressed into Vanellope's princess skirt. "It's good to see you too, kiddo! I owe you big time for your help back there!"

"No problemo! I was just on my way to visit Ralph in _his_ game, and I thought you could use some help," Vanellope said. She released Nora from the hug. "Hey, Nora, if I can convince Ralph to get off his big fat butt and come here, could we sit with you in _Tapper?_"

Nora thought about it for a minute. She had been looking forward to an evening of quiet reading, but at the same time she'd also been looking forward to encountering Ralph again. She'd been thinking about him ever since their first meeting yesterday night. She'd liked his kind voice. She'd liked _him._ He was one of the nicest people she'd met outside of _Brawl Nation_, along with Vanellope, and she wanted to know more about both of them.

"You promised to tell us all about yourself!" Vanellope reminded her. "And I think Ralph _reeeeeeeally_ wants to see you again!"

_"Oh, why not? I can always read in the bar tomorrow, if the Surge Protector learned anything today," _Nora thought. To Vanellope she said, "Alright, kiddo, it's on. You go get Ralph and I'll go get us a table. Does that sound like a plan?"

"Aye, aye, captain!" Vanellope exclaimed gleefully. "His game's not far from here! It won't take_ too_ long! You go sit down and relax, and _I'll_ go fetch Paper Butt!"

"Is there a story behind that nickname?" The Brawler asked curiously.

"You bet there is!" Vanellope said, giggling mischievously. "But we've got a lot of _better_ stories to tell you as well!"

* * *

Ralph sipped his coffee and feigned interest in one of Nicelander Gene's wall paintings as the groom-to-be and his groomsman Nicelander Roy launched into yet another argument over the dress code for the upcoming wedding. The Bad Guy glanced at Felix, the best man, who kept a determined smile plastered on his face despite the fact that he was just as exasperated with these petty disputes as everyone else was. Gene and his five groomsmen (Felix, Roy, Larry, Peter, and Ralph) had assembled in his apartment for a meeting shortly after the arcade closed, and things had been going smoothly until Roy decided to bring up his issue with the groomsmen's attire again.

"But do our bow ties and vests _have_ to be pink with green polka dots? Why can't we pick something else?"

Gene groaned and rubbed at his temples. "We've been over this, Roy. That's the pattern Mary chose for the bridesmaids' dresses and she wants the groomsmen to match."

"I'm not saying that it won't look great on the ladies," Roy said. "But what about _us?_ We're gonna look like buffoons!"

"When _you_ get married, Roy, we'll dress in all black so that we don't threaten your masculinity," Ralph spoke up. "We'll wear war paint on our faces too."

Gene snickered and threw Ralph a grateful smirk. Roy glared at the Bad Guy, and Felix nervously cleared his throat. "Gentleman, might I suggest that we go over the plans for the bachelor party this coming Thursday?"

"I've talked to Skillrex about the music," Peter said. "He's got a pretty sweet playlist ready to go. He's got all of our requests on there, and then some."

"Excellent," Felix replied with a cheerful nod, scribbling a note down on his clipboard. "We can't throw a smashing bachelor party without good music, can we?"

"No, but we're somehow gonna have one without a dancer," Roy put in.

"I don't want a dancer at my bachelor party," Gene snapped at him.

"Yuni from _DDR_ offered to—"

"I think she was joking when she made that offer, Roy," Felix interrupted. "And I didn't have a dancer at _my_ bachelor party."

"You didn't have a bachelor party at all!" Roy cried. "We all just got drunk at_ Tapper's_ and you threw up in the bushes when we got home! Ralph had to carry you upstairs! You were sobbing like a—"

Gene slammed his palms down on the table. "Alright, that does it! I need a stiff drink! Cold coffee isn't doing it for me. Anyone else want a gin and tonic?"

Roy, Larry, and Peter raised their hands, but Felix shook his head. "I'll be seeing the Missus later, and I don't want to go to her with alcohol on my breath."

"Eat a spoonful of peanut butter before you go. That'll kill the smell," Larry suggested. But Felix still refused.

"What about you, Ralph? Gin and tonic?" Gene asked the Bad Guy, who was staring absent-mindedly into his empty coffee mug.

"Huh?" Ralph looked up, snapping out of his trance. He'd been busy thinking about a pair of blue-gray eyes and the clever young woman they belonged to. He'd been thinking about her non-stop since yesterday night. His colleagues had noticed that he'd been acting rather strangely ever since he'd come home from his outing with Vanellope von Schweetz, but so far no one had said anything. They just assumed that fatigue was making his mind fade in and out. "Uh, sure. Sounds good."

Felix smiled at his friend. "A pie for your thoughts, Ralph?"

_"A coin for your thoughts, Ralph?_

_"I-I…"_

_"You'll have to do better than that if you want a coin."_

"I just spaced out for a bit," Ralph lied, scratching at his cheek and avoiding meeting Felix's gaze.

_"I just remembered! I still owe you a coin! For your thoughts. Remind me next time we see each other!"_

"Is everything alright?" Felix asked.

"Everything's fine."

_"What's wrong, Paper Butt? Are you **blinded** by her beauty?"_

There was a knock on Gene's door. Ralph got up to answer it, since the Nicelander host was busy mixing the drinks. He was grateful for the interruption, which allowed him to temporarily bypass Felix's questions. He carefully pushed the door open and was pleasantly surprised to find Vanellope standing there with a big cheeky grin on her face.

"Hey, President Booger Face!" he greeted her cheerfully, scooping her up into a hug.

"Hey, Stink Brain!" Vanellope replied, hugging him back. "Dana or Donna or What's-Her-Name told me you were here! Oh, hi Hammer Man!"

"Well _helloooo_ to you too, Miss President!" Felix said, appearing at the door. Ralph put her down and she gave Felix a quick hug as well. "What brings you to our game?"

"I have to steal Ralph away for a while," Vanellope announced. "I have a surprise for him!"

"It's going to have to wait, Vanellope," Ralph told her. "We're in the middle of a meeting."

"But it _can't_ wait!" Vanellope wailed. "It's super important!"

"Planning a party is super important too, kid," Ralph said, though there was a hint of sarcasm in his tone. "I have to stay here for a little while longer, and _then_ we'll go out. Okay?"

"I think you'll change your mind if I told you what the surprise is!"

Ralph raised a challenging eyebrow. "Oh, really? Fire away, then."

"Guess who's at _Tapper's _right now, waiting for us?!" Vanellope asked. Before Ralph could think of an answer, she blurted out, "Nora Sparks!"

A hot red blush crept into Ralph's cheeks, and the fluttering in his chest returned. Those blue-gray eyes reappeared in his mind and twinkled like jewels. "Nora...Nora's waiting for us?!"

"That's what I just said, Meat Head! _Ga-Doy!_"

"Who's Nora Sparks?" Felix asked, noticing his friend's blushing. A knowing little smile appeared on the handyman's face. He knew the honey glows when he saw them, and Ralph was honey-glowing something _fierce._ Suddenly, his friend's recent distracted behaviour was starting to make sense.

"We met her yesterday at _Tapper!" _Vanellope cried, bouncing up and down energetically. "She's from a fighting game and she's blind and Ralph says she can do cool tricks with dirt—!"

"Woah, woah, woah! Hold on there, little missy!" Felix interrupted her. "What do you mean_ she's blind_?"

"She's actually blind, Felix," Ralph told his friend. "The programmers made her blind."

Felix was shocked, and his eyes widened. "But...but _why?!_"

"Guys! Enough chit-chat! Ralph, we have to go _now!" _Vanellope said, tugging on the giant's hand. "If you don't come with me, Nora will think that you don't like her!"

"NO! I mean, n-no...of course I like her," Ralph said, swallowing hard. Beside him, Felix suppressed a chuckle. "I'll come with you! Felix, could you tell Gene—?"

"I've got you covered, Ralph," Felix assured him with a nod of his head. "You don't want to keep the lady waiting, do you? I wish I could go with you guys to meet her, but you know I'm going to see Tammy right after this. Some other time, though."

"Tell the Sarge we said hi," Ralph said. Vanellope kept pulling insistently on his hand. "Kid, relax, I'm coming!"

They said farewell to Felix, who watched them disappear into the elevator. When they were gone, he mumbled "Goodness gracious..._blind_," under his breath before going back into Gene's apartment. He made up a quick fib about Ralph's sudden departure, and in response Roy called dibs on Ralph's abandoned gin and tonic.

Ralph insisted that he and Vanellope stop by his shack so that he could wash up quickly before they went to meet Nora. Vanellope laughed at him. "She can't see you, Dumbo! She won't care what you look like!"

"No, but she might care what I _smell_ like," Ralph replied. Vanellope waited outside while Ralph washed his face, neck, and armpits in his shack's sink. He also brushed his teeth three times. Twice to make his breath smell passable, and once more just to be safe.

"Heh. It took meeting a pretty lady to make you start caring about your personal hygiene!" Vanellope teased as they boarded the train that would take them to the Game Central Station.

Butterflies swarmed in Ralph's stomach during the train ride and the walk through the Station to the _Tapper _entrance. His first meeting with Nora had been awkward, and afterwards he'd felt like a fool. But he'd also felt like the luckiest man alive. She was so pleasant, so friendly, so...unprejudiced. She was just the sort of person Ralph had dreamed of meeting during his lonelier years in the arcade.

"And _heeeeere_ we are!" Vanellope sang once they reached _Tapper. _"I hope Nora got us a good table!"

Ralph would have gladly sat on the floor to drink beer if it meant spending time with the blind girl. He quickly and nervously checked on the state of his breath one more time and collected his courage before following Vanellope into _Tapper, _where an evening in Nora's company awaited him.

* * *

**End of Chapter**

* * *

And now...it's time for my temporary disappearing act! The next chapter probably won't be uploaded until sometime after the fifteenth, so please be patient! Also, there's a poll on my profile page for this story. Please take the time to vote, since it's relevant to future chapters.

Please review!


	5. The Blind Woman's Tale

I'm _baaaaaaack!_

Exams are over and done with, and now it's time to concentrate on the more important things in life, like writing nerdy fanfiction and...what's that you say? This story has a new cover image?! *Looks up* Well, milk my duds! This story _does_ have a new cover image!

That right there, my friends, is the artistic sorcery of my good friend **KoutaDragara**, who is now the proud owner of my eternal love. And _I'm_ the proud owner of a perfect, perfect,_ perfect_ drawing of my heroine, as well as a perfect cover for this story. I mean, _just look at it! _Isn't Nora a doll?! LOOK AT HER HAIR! LOOK AT HER EYES! _GAH._

The poll on my profile page is still up and running, so for those of you who haven't voted, please do so. I want to know what parts of _Brawl Nation_ my readers are most curious about, and so far most people want to know about the game's backstory. I'll do my best to write about everything, but getting outside opinions is really helpful to me. Please, please vote! It only takes a minute!

I'm a bit disappointed with how this chapter turned out. I rewrote the beginning twice, and debated with myself over how it should end. There were some jokes I had to cut out because they didn't fit in anywhere, and writing Ralph's character is _so damn hard._ He's like a freaking mood ring. He just switches from happy to pissed in seconds. I also feel like shit for making all of you wait so long for this half-assed thing. I've been following a bunch of other amazing WIR stories that update like every week, and then I think to myself, "Hmmm...I really should stop being a lazy butt and work on _my_ story, shouldn't I?"

Well, I did (temporarily) stop being lazy, and _this_ happened. Enjoy?

(An extra note: I really, really wanted to use the phrase "milk my duds." Don't judge me.)

* * *

**Chapter Five: The Blind Woman's Tale**

* * *

The_ Tapper_ barkeeper plonked a frothy mug of root beer onto Nora's table. "Drink's to your right, Miss Sparks."

"Thanks," she responded, eagerly reaching out for it. She'd gone ahead and ordered a drink for herself while waiting for Vanellope and Ralph to show up. Shouting at the Surge Protector and then getting electrocuted by him had made her desperately thirsty. The barkeeper watched with a curious gaze as she greedily downed half the glass without pausing for a breath. When she was finished she wiped her mouth clean with her forearm, not realizing that there was a napkin dispenser right next to her.

"Looks like _s_omeone's worked up a thirst," Tapper remarked. "Have a rough time in the arenas today?"

"Today's brawls were_ nothing _compared to the hell the Surge Protector's putting me through," Nora replied.

The barkeeper huffed. "If I had a coin for every time I've heard someone complain about Surge, I'd be wealthier than Princess Peach. That man is just _terrible_ at his job. His heart's in the right place, but he's a few amps short of a current."

"_Oh, his electric currents are working __**just fine**__,"_ Nora thought bitterly, bringing the mug back up to her lips. After another long swallow of root beer, she said, "Two of my friends are coming here to hang with me. He better not bother them while they're walking through the Station, or I'll make him sorry."

"I wouldn't recommend feuding with the Surge," Tapper advised her. "From what I've heard, his electric shocks hurt so bad that you'll scream like a banshee if you so much as touch his hand."

"_Wanna bet, Barkeep? He shocked me today and I didn't make a sound_. _He can shock me a thousand times and he won't get a squeak out of me."_ The Brawler didn't speak those boisterous words out loud. Instead she just shrugged indifferently and finished off the rest of her soda.

"Care for another?" Tapper asked her as he reached for the empty glass mug. "Or would you prefer something stronger than root beer? A regular beer, perhaps?"

Nora shook her head. "I don't drink," she reminded him. She'd told him that once before, but he must have forgotten. "I'll wait until my friends get here. Then I'll probably go for another root beer."

Tapper shrugged. "Suit yourself, Miss Sparks. Holler if you need anything else."

"Will do," Nora replied, and he left her then, taking the empty, sticky mug with him. She was left alone on her bar stool with no one to talk to, at least until Vanellope and Ralph arrived. She reached into her backpack for her book, figuring that she could take advantage of this quiet time to get some reading done. The kid had said that it wouldn't take long to retrieve Ralph from _Fix-It Felix Jr. _and bring him to the bar, but Nora knew better. She spent a good part of her life memorizing routes and how long they took. Considering that Vanellope had to make her way through the crowd in the Game Central Station to wherever the_ Fix-It Felix Jr._ entrance was, ride the train into Ralph's game, search for him, and then make the journey back with the big guy in tow, Nora guessed that it would be a good, solid thirty minutes before the empty seats at her table would be occupied.

She opened her book to the first page and smoothed her hand over it, relishing the familiarity of the bumps and holes and sighing happily. If the Surge Protector had taken this treasured volume away from her, she didn't know _what_ she would have done. Poetry was one of the great solaces in her life, and one of her keen pleasures. Her late guardian Max had loved poems. He'd taught her to love poems too, another part of her person he'd shaped with the patience and determination of an artist.

With a touch of sadness and nostalgia, she remembered how after the day's training was done, he'd read aloud to her from the many volumes of poetry he'd bought from travellers and vendors or rescued from abandoned libraries. For hours on end he read her poems of love, poems of heartbreak, poems of war, and poems of death and grief. Some poems taught history lessons, some were silly and full of nonsense, some struck terror in one's heart, and some told stories of worlds that could only exist in one's imagination. Nora loved all of them, even the ones that made her want to weep. Every night she had happily drowned in a sea of beautiful words, sitting beside Max's feet and listening to his warm voice recite. There had been a gentle, scholarly side to the man who, as a soldier, had a reputation for being vicious and unpredictable. Nora was one of the few people who'd known that softer side of him.

When he hired a private tutor for her, he insisted on poetry being a major part of the curriculum. On her fourteenth birthday, he presented her with a stack of poetry books in braille, having used his connections to obtain them for her. Nora had shed tears of joy when she received those books. Years later, at age twenty-one, she still kept them all on a shelf right next to her bed, and the book the Surge Protector had attempted to confiscate had been her favourite since she was a girl.

_"Does the Surge Protector ever read for fun?" _Nora wondered. She guessed that he didn't. If he did, he might have understood what this book meant to her, how much of a loss it would be for her if he'd taken it away.

It was a collection of war poems, written by the mothers and wives of soldiers who'd died in wars fought long ago, decades before the Great Nuclear War that had made the world of _Brawl Nation_ what it was now. Somehow the stories of these women had survived the apocalypse. Their pain and their passion throbbed beneath Nora's fingertips. One poem in particular pulled at her heartstrings, mostly because it hit so close to home. It was called "The Blind Woman's Tale," and it had haunted and fascinated her for years. It was about a blind woman who wanders through a field after a battle, searching for her son amidst the bodies of fallen soldiers. She calls out his name but can't hear him call back to her through the moans of the dying. Losing hope, the blind woman despairingly sings the lullaby she sang for her son when he was a child. The whole battlefield falls dead silent to listen to her, until her grown son starts weakly singing with her from where he lies close to death. She goes to him and two are reunited, but not for long. The soldier dies in his mother's arms, with her song on his lips, and his mother cries for him and for herself.

_"What cruel God,  
gave me a voice to soothe him,  
to his last sleep,  
and eyes that can't see him,  
but only weep?"_

There was a reason Nora had packed tissues before leaving _Brawl Nation._ If she teared up in _Tapper_ she didn't want to have to use the scratchy bar napkins to wipe her eyes, even though she'd read "The Blind Woman's Tale" and all of the other poems a million times before and _should_ have built up an immunity to them by now.

_"I'll skip this one for now," _Nora decided, as she passed over "The Blind Woman's Tale" and flipped the page to a different poem, one that didn't hurt quite so much. She found one that told a happier story, about a soldier who married his sweetheart the day he returned home from the war. They had many children and watched them all grow tall and strong, unlike the blind woman who couldn't see her son at all.

Some time passed, and Nora relaxed into her reading, forgetting about the Surge Protector and almost forgetting that Vanellope and Ralph would be arriving soon. She was reminded of the latter when her nose suddenly caught whiffs of a thick, sugary aroma and well as a sharp, masculine musk she remembered from the night before.

"Nooooora!" Vanellope's merry voice rang through the bar. "We're here!"

Nora raised her head and threw the friendliest of smiles in the direction of the voice. "Vanellope! Ralph! What's up, guys?"

* * *

Every ounce of confidence and bravery Ralph had mustered before entering the bar abandoned him as soon as he saw her sitting alone at one of the tables, with a book open in front of her. She was resting her cheek on her hand, looking completely at peace as the fingers of her other hand lightly danced across the pages. She was wearing those shiny sunglasses again, the ones he'd rescued from behind a potted plant just the night before, sparing them from an eventual fate in _Tapper's_ Lost and Found box. There were two empty seats at her table. One next to her, and one right across from her. One of Vanellope, and one for him. Either way, he would be close to her for most of the night. He swallowed nervously.

Vanellope called out to her, announcing their arrival, and she lifted up her head as they approached the table. A kind, beautiful smile of recognition spread across her face. "Vanellope! Ralph! What's up, guys?"

She pulled the sunglasses off, putting those remarkable crystal eyes of hers on full display. Ralph's mouth went dry, and his heart started thumping fiercely in his chest. Her eyes really _were_ like jewels, devoid of life but sparkling magnificently. The rest of her features captivated him as well. His eyes traced over her jawline, the smooth curves of her cheekbones, the shape of her smiling mouth, her ruffled green and blue bangs. His gaze then brushed over her slender white neck and collarbone before it (involuntarily) moved a little lower...

"Yo, earth to Ralph!" Vanellope cried. "Are the wheels still turning in that big meaty head of yours? Say hi to Nora!"

Ralph broke out of his trance and quickly shook his head. "Sorry, I was just..." He awkwardly smoothed back his hair, trying to recompose himself. This second meeting was already going badly. They hadn't even spoken to each other yet and he was already ogling her like a lovestruck teenage boy. He sighed and mentally kicked himself. "Hi Nora."

Nora laughed. "Hi Ralph. The kid's got ya trained like a dog, by the sounds of it! You speak right on command!"

"He also rolls over, plays dead, and fetches my newspaper for me," Vanellope said, grinning up at him.

"In your dreams, kid," Ralph said, glancing down at her with a mock glare. He then looked back up at the Brawler and almost got hypnotized again by her jewel eyes. He fought it off (though not without some effort) and gave a clumsy smile. "Sooooo, uh, how are _you_ this fine Sunday evening, Nora?"

That sentence hadn't come out as smoothly as he would've liked. He'd accidentally made it sound too forward, too sleazy. Even Vanellope noticed it, and she giggled. Nora didn't seem to mind, though. "I'm very, _very well," _she replied with a playful tone. "And you?"

"Same. Very, very well," Ralph answered, wishing that his pounding heart would settle down. Her lovely face and her sunniness were doing this to him, filling him with all sorts of strange jitters and making him incapable of saying anything that wasn't painfully awkward. He took a few deep breaths and forced himself to relax. The Bad Guy reminded himself that he'd held a conversation with her just yesterday. He could do it again if he tried.

_"You **can** do this, Ralph. She's not like all the others," _his mind reminded him._ "She's different. She's not judgemental." _She hadn't judged him the night before. She'd accepted his help. She'd accepted _him._ She'd talked to him like he was a person, not a monster. She knew what it was like to be identified by one thing alone and forced to suffer because of it. He was a villain and she was handicapped. The rest of the arcade thought that there was nothing else worth noting about them, but they both knew that wasn't true. Yesterday he'd felt a mutual understanding between the two of them when they compared their crummy situations. He'd felt a connection, a plug between their two worlds. Had she felt it too? Programmers, he hoped so.

"Sorry we took so long," Vanellope told Nora as she climbed onto the bar stool next to the Brawler. "Ralph had to get himself _allll_ dolled up for you before we left his game!"

Ralph's cheeks burned crimson with indignation. "I was not getting _dolled up!_ I was—" He realized that he had raised his voice, and Nora was wearing a surprised expression. He quickly cleared his throat. "Nora, does washing your face and brushing your teeth count as getting yourself dolled up?"

"Hmmm...it depends. Did you use tooth polish?"

"He brushed his teeth _three times_," Vanellope informed Nora. "Be grateful for that. Normally his breath stinks to high heaven."

Ralph shot Vanellope the sharpest "I will kill you and make it look like an accident" glare imaginable. Vanellope responded by sticking her tongue out at him. Nora was blissfully unaware of this exchange. "Well, he brushed his teeth three more times than_ I_ did before I left home tonight. Ralph, aren't you gonna sit down?"

The empty seat across from Nora beckoned to him, and the Bad Guy decided that he could give his young friend a good scolding later. Unfortunately, luck wasn't on Ralph's side that night, and when he sat down on the bar stool he discovered too late that the screws at the bottom were loose. The stool tipped over and he tipped over with it, crying out with surprise as he crashed to the floor. The bar stools in _Tapper_ were usually astoundedly durable, and characters as big as Ralph could sit comfortably on them as long as they were careful. But, of course, _this one_ was broken.

_"Why me?"_ Ralph thought, as he quickly scrambled to get himself back on his feet. Nora and Vanellope (who both had instantly leapt out of their own seats after he fell) tried to help him up, but he waved them away. "I'm fine, I'm fine. Just a little tumble, that's all."

"Geez, Captain Klutz, can't you go _five minutes_ without injuring yourself?!" Vanellope exclaimed.

"Hey, I made it all the way here without—"

"Ralph, don't move!" Nora suddenly cried. "You're about to step on a screw!"

Ralph, who had been just about to take a step forward, froze and looked down. Sure enough, beneath his raised foot, there was a sharp, painful-looking loose screw from the overturned bar stool lying on the floor. His mouth dropped open. "How did you see that if—"

Instead of reaching down for it, Nora opened her palm and the screw flew right into her hand. She didn't even have to look at it. Ralph stared at her for a moment and then sighed. "Let me guess. You can control metal too, right?"

"Bingo," Nora replied, tossing the screw in the air and catching it. "Metal _is_ just purified and refined earth, after all."

"That...is so_ **COOL!**"_ Vanellope cried, her eyes as wide as saucers. "How did you do that?!"

Nora smiled down at the child. "That was nothing. Watch _this_."

With a wave of her hand, the bar stool lifted itself upright, and the loose screw leaped out of her open palm and landed right into its empty hole, where it spun back into its place and secured itself tightly. Nora twirled her pointer fingers at the bar stool's base, and all of the other screws (the ones that hadn't fallen out) tightened up as well.

"Wooooooah," was all Vanellope could say as she watched the Brawler woman work her magic.

"You're just full of surprises, aren't you?" Ralph asked Nora, shaking his head incredulously. First yesterday's pot soil, and now _this. _This was just another reason why he needed this girl in his life. She fixed what he wrecked as brilliantly as Felix did, and she didn't even need to carry around a flashy hammer.

"Try sitting on it now," Nora commanded. Ralph did so, and the stool didn't budge. Both he and Vanellope broke into applause, and Nora did a mock little bow.

Tapper came over to their table then, confused and curious about the clapping. He'd been busy with a large group on the other side of his bar and had missed both Ralph's tumble _and_ Nora's display of her powers. "Good evening, Ralph, Miss President. I didn't know you two were acquainted with Miss Sparks."

"Tapper, you need to hire this girl. She can clean your floors _and_ fix your chairs," Ralph told him half-jokingly, pointing at Nora. She and Vanellope laughed as they climbed back onto their seats.

The barkeeper's mouth curved into amused little smile beneath his moustache. "Though it _would_ be nice to have some help around here, I think Miss Sparks already has her hands full in _Brawl Nation._ So what can I get for you three?"

Nora repeated her order for a second root beer, and Vanellope asked for the same (with, in her words, "a buttload of foam"). Ralph ordered some cheese fries for the table as well as a beer for himself, and tried to persuade Nora to alter her order and have some of _the strong stuff_ with him until Nora informed that she didn't drink.

"It actually has nothing to do with me being blind," she explained after Tapper left. "I just don't like the taste."

"It's not for everyone," Ralph assured her as his eyes began to wander over her features again, taking in even more details such as the light silvery tips of her eyelashes. "So what else are we going to find out about you tonight?"

"What do you want to know?" Nora answered, brushing her bangs off her forehead with her fingers. She missed one small strand of green hair that curled up above her left eyebrow and didn't make any move to push it away. Ralph contemplated brushing it aside himself, but then he noticed Vanellope slyly trying to reach for Nora's book. He gently swatted Vanellope's arm aside with his pointer finger, like a parent trying to keep his kid's sticky fingers out of the cookie jar.

"Kid, _don't even think about it._"

"I just wanna look at it!" Vanellope protested.

"That Nora's book, not yo—wait a minute." He'd been so distracted all evening that it hadn't even occurred to him that there was something odd about the fact that Nora, a blind person, owned a book. It had sat there the whole time and he'd barely glanced it. Nora herself was a much more interesting spectacle to behold than a mere book, but once Ralph took a good look at the open volume he realized that it was probably going to be another thing about the blind girl that was going to amaze him. It was like no other book he'd seen before (though, admittedly, he'd seen very few). There were no words, just tiny dots stretching across the pages, forming a sort of secret code that probably only Nora knew.

"She can look at it if she wants," Nora told him. "She helped me rescue it earlier."

"From the evil clutches of Surge McStupid," Vanellope added. She touched some of the dots with her fingertips. "What are these?"

"It's called braille," Nora explained. "The dots make up words that I can read with my fingers. Here, I'll show you."

She gently took Vanellope's hand in her own and guided it across the page, making the child's finger slowly trace over each little cluster of dots. "This is an _A_, this is a _N_, this is a _D_..."

"That's brilliant," Ralph remarked as he watched them. "Where'd you get a book like that?"

"My guardian Max found it for me," Nora answered. "Along with a bunch of other books. He was good at that. Finding things. He found me..."

Her face fell, and for a moment Ralph thought he saw tears glistening in her eyes. But then Tapper reappeared with their drinks and fries, and Nora quickly blinked away the wetness and smiled like she didn't have a care in the world. She also closed up the book, sealing away all the mysteries it contained, and slipped it into the brown backpack that lay on the floor. Ralph wanted to ask her about Max, and how exactly he'd _found_ her, but Vanellope had different ideas about what they should talk about. After cramming a fistful of fries into her mouth, she demanded to know how Nora "kicked butt" in _Brawl Nation._

"Well, before I can tell you about how _amazingly awesome_ I am in my game, I'm going to have to explain the rules of the brawls. But I think you might find that really, really boring," Nora said teasingly.

Ralph chuckled. "By all means, _bore us_," he said light-heartedly.

"Yes! Tell us!" Vanellope cried. "Tell us how the fights work!"

Nora gave a mock exasperated sigh. "Oooh, alright, if you insist." She cleared her throat. "My game has six arenas, and eight fighters for the gamers to choose from. We're called _Brawlers_."

"Which ones are the bad ones?" Ralph asked right away, thinking about how popular combat games like _Street Fighter_ and _Mortal Kombat_ had their own factions of Good Guys and Bad Guys. A part of him was hoping that Nora was like him, a villain in her game but different in real life. He doubted it, though. She was too nice to be a Bad Guy in _any_ way.

Nora looked confused. "What do you mean by_ bad ones_?"

"Who are the villains?" Ralph repeated. "Who are the Bad Guys?"

"Oooh, _that's_ what you meant!" Nora exclaimed, chuckling at her own misunderstanding of his question. "I think all the Brawlers have a touch of _bad_ in their coding, including myself, but no one's a Bad Guy. _Brawl Nation_ doesn't have a good vs. evil dynamic. You either win a brawl or you don't. It's a post-apocalyptic world. It's all about survival. At least that's what the pre-recorded announcer's voice says at the beginning of every game."

"So...there are no sides?" Ralph asked with a surprised tone. He was having difficulty grasping this concept. How could a game not have Bad Guys to defeat? What was the plot? What was the conflict? What was the _point?_

Nora shook her head. "No sides. In the arenas, you fight for yourself and no one else." She swiped two fingers across the rim of her mug and brought them to her lips to suck the root beer foam off.

_"She has pretty fingers," _Ralph thought distractedly. His stomach did a flip-flop at the way they fit perfectly between her pink lips. He stared at her petite hand for a few moments before he forcefully steered his concentration back to the conversation. "So...so you're all enemies? You and the other Brawlers, I mean?"

Nora pulled her fingers out of her mouth. "Enemies? Nah. Not even close. They're my buds."

Now it was Ralph's turn to be confused. "But you just said—"

"There's a _big_ difference between gameplay and reality, Ralph," Nora told him. "You'd _think_ that we were all enemies, the way we go at each other in the arenas, but it's all for show. Off work hours, they're the best friends I could ask for." She paused. "_Man_, those fries smell good. Kiddo, could you pass them over? I'm going to need some fuel if I'm gonna give you a full rundown of my game. There's a _lot_ to get through. We might be here all night!"

* * *

The _Brawl Nation_ train screeched as it came to a halt right in front of the game's entrance. The locomotive was a big, hulking marvel of black steel, with a noisy engine that roared like a prolonged battle cry. It had been designed by the programmers to look like something that had once been used to transport troops or prisoners during wartime but had later been claimed by the _Brawl Nation_ characters as their own. It ran smoothly thanks to the careful maintainance of the Crowdies, who tooks turns doing mechanical checkups and acting as train conductor.

The first boxcar's double doors slid open and Lana Bladefury, Sheila Windblast, and Mitch Gears leapt out onto the platform. Sheila pulled the doors shut behind them and they tipped the Crowdie on conductor duty before stepping out into the bustling Game Central Station.

"Why are we out here?" Mitch complained. "There's _beer_ back in our game. Lots of it."

"You can drink yourself blind after we find Sparks," Sheila told him. Then she paused. "I _reeeally_ should've thought that through before saying it."

"Yup, you should have."

Sheila glared at Mitch. "I _never_ spoke that sentence. Got it?"

"What sentence?" Mitch asked, grinning back at her cheekily.

"Guys, come on!" Lana shouted at them. She was already moving through the crowd, trying to find the Surge Protector or someone else who could tell them where Nora was. Earlier that evening, on her way out the door, Nora had shouted to Lana that she was going to _Tapper's_ to hang out, but her roommate had been too distracted with the task of polishing her hundreds of knives to really listen to what Nora had said and replied with a absentminded "okay" without looking up from her work. Eventually, she snapped out of her polishing trance and realized that her blind best friend was missing. She searched around _Brawl Nation_ until one of the Crowdies informed her that they'd spotted Nora heading towards the train. Lana had immediately headed straight for the station, recruiting Sheila and Mitch for her search party along the way, though Mitch had been more difficult to persuade than Sheila.

"Sparks can take care of herself. I don't see why we have to baby her. We should just leave her alone," he insisted as he and Sheila went after Lana. "Hey, let's go to _Super Mario_ and watch the green-shelled Koopas walk off cliffs!"

"We're making sure she's _alive_, not babying her. There's a big fucking difference," Sheila snapped at him. "And you're the only one who finds that amusing, so shut your trap before I shut it _for_ you."

Sheila wouldn't admit it out loud, but she also got a little nervous whenever Nora left _Brawl Nation_ by herself, though she'd done it several times before and had always come back unharmed. Sheila knew that Nora was tough and self-reliant, but things still happened. She was also a bit uneasy about the fact that no one from _Brawl Nation_ knew where exactly Nora was at the moment. "Hey, look. Bladefury found Blue Balls."

Blue Balls was Sheila's nickname for the Surge Protector, who was on a bench with his head sitting miserably in his hands, looking like he'd just found out that his worst enemy was sleeping with his mother. Lana had to clear her throat several times before getting his attention. When he looked up, he froze with fear, recognizing Lana and the two approaching young adults as characters from Nora's game.

"I-I, uh..." He swallowed hard. He had electrocuted their comrade not very long ago, and he prepared himself to face their fury. Instead, Lana's worried gaze met his, and he could tell from the look in her amber eyes that the news of his accidental abuse of Nora Sparks hadn't reached her yet. Sheila and Mitch didn't look angry with him either. Sheila looked irritated, and Mitch just looked bored.

"We're looking for Nora," Lana informed him, anxiously twirling a silky curl around her finger.

"You know, the one you nag every time she leaves _Brawl Nation_?" Sheila asked. "Yellow and white shirt? Green and blue hair? Ring any bells?"

"She's at _Tapper's,_" the Protector said, swallowing hard and guiltily looking down at his shoes.

Lana let out a huge sigh of relief. "Oh, thank the programmers! I should have known!" She then paused. "Wait, was she by herself?"

"No. The _Sugar Rush_ princess was with her."

"A princess?!" Mitch exclaimed. "Since when does Sparks know a princess?!"

"She mentioned meeting a _President_ yesterday," Sheila spoke up. "And some guy who found her sunglasses for her. Rick or Ralph or something. I don't know. I wasn't paying attention."

"That's because you had your nose buried in a sketchbook," Lana snapped at her, not realizing the hypocrisy of that statement, considering how _she_ had ignored Nora earlier in favour of her knives.

"Let's go to_ Tapper's_ and see what's what," Mitch suggested. He wanted to meet this princess (he was hoping that she'd be a hot royal babe like Princess Peach or Princess Zelda) and he wanted a beer, which _Tapper_ could provide.

"Thanks for being helpful for a change," Sheila rudely told the Protector, right before she and her friends turned away from him to walk towards the bar_._

Once they were gone, the Surge Protector sighed exhaustedly. He shook his head, silently cursing the programmers who'd made _Brawl Nation_ and all of its intolerable inhabitants. How could a game with such obnoxious characters _possibly_ be so popular?

* * *

**End of Chapter**

* * *

"Why would the programmers bother giving Nora all of these memories?!" you all cry out in confusion. "What's the point?!"

"It's called Rule of Drama," I respond. "And this is a fanfiction! Let those guys at Disney worry about all of that _logic _crap! I do what I want!"

By the way, has anyone else heard that they're working on a sequel? God, if they give Ralph a love interest (which they totally will), it's going to break my heart. Poor Nora. My poor precious baby...(I'm becoming a bit too emotionally attached to her).

_Anyways_, please review! And Merry Christmas!


	6. Meanwhile, in Brawl Nation

Well, this is awkward.

I'm sorry for making you all wait so atrociously long for this chapter. And you're probably going to hate me even more because Ralph and Nora aren't in it...*dodges flying tomatoes* Please read it anyways, because it was a real bitch to write. I've been going through really bad writer's block lately. I blame school and all of its creativity-sucking powers. This is just a short chapter to kick off a sub-plot for the story. I'm...sorry.

(An extra note: Red is the Crowdie from the first chapter who counted how many times Nora was picked as an avatar during _Brawl Nation's_ first day in the arcade. Just to let you know.)

* * *

**Chapter Six: Meanwhile, In _Brawl Nation..._**

* * *

With his hands placed firmly on his hips, Red stood peering into the bleak emptiness that surrounded the _Brawl Nation_ community, with its arenas and houses clustered together like a pack of mice cowering from predators. Behind him, Harvey Stormer and a few of Red's fellow Crowdies sat around a cook fire, roasting sausages and onions and swapping banter and stories. Usually Red was at the very centre of these after-hour hangouts, filling everyone's mugs with their game's good beer and making them squirt it out through their noses with his jokes, but not even the mouth-watering smell of the food could snap him out of his current daze.

"_There's too much empty space in our game,"_ he thought, watching the breeze pick up the gray dust and making it clumsily dance above the ground. One of the things that many visitors found disconcerting about _Brawl Nation_ was its breeze. There was always a light wind, tickling the skin of the game's inhabitants, whispering in their ears like a needy lover. While he and the _Brawl Nation_ characters were used to it, outsiders were not, and he remembered with a small grin how Mr. Hot Dog, Mr. Pickle, and Mr. Egg from _BurgerTime_ had squirmed and shivered when they first felt its presence during their one field trip to _Brawl Nation_ (though that was nothing compared how Mr. Hot Dog had sobbed when he saw some Crowdies cooking sausages, which was a popular dinner food in the game). Other characters found it unsettling, even unnecessary, but to Red it was the game's pulse. Without it they—the _Brawl Nation_ citizens—would be breathing and walking in air that was too unnatural, too _still._

Red was a man who liked and appreciated the simpler things in life, such as the gentle breeze. As the Head Crowdie in _Brawl Nation_ he was often so busy that he had to snatch up pleasures wherever he could find them. To him a day that included at least one hearty meal and someone choking up with laughter at one of his witticisms was a day well-spent. But today the wheels in his head were turning and churning out thoughts about something that had been bothering him ever since the game had been plugged in two weeks ago, which had nothing to do with food or jokes.

"_All of this empty space…just for a landscape shot in the opening video," _he observed with mild annoyance. _"What a waste. But I guess that's why they're called __**waste**__lands." _

He briefly turned around and looked up, coming face-to-face with the outside wall of the Ballistic Blasters arena. Three days ago the gamers had done a number on it, making their avatars spin and activate the cannons so often that the arena would've been blown to smithereens if the programming of the place hadn't been made to endure being hit with the worst of everything. The gamers loved the fact that their avatars could actually interact with the arenas they fought in. In the Fatal Factory Arena the Brawlers could jump on the equipment to dodge an attack (though not for very long, since the faulty equipment exploded at random. It was a_ fatal_ factory, after all). In the Manic Mirrors Arena the gamers had to navigate their avatars through a maze of spinning, moving mirrors that made multiple reflections of the Brawlers that confused their players. But that was the charm of it, of course; to confuse, to _challenge_, and if there was one thing players loved, it was a challenge.

But what concerned Red was that the gamers were getting good at the challenges, perhaps a little _too _good. There were only six arenas—six deadly battlegrounds—for them to master. As thrilling as the arenas were, it was all _Brawl Nation_ had to offer its gamers. What would happen if, or _when_, the thrill wore off? What if the gamers got bored? What if their measly six arenas weren't enough to earn their keep at Litwak's? Directing his gaze back out into the wastelands, Red couldn't help but wonder if perhaps filling in the shamefully empty space would prevent _Brawl Nation_ from losing its shine…

Of course, he was currently the only one whose mind was preoccupied with this issue. The others were busy indulging in a deep, meaningful conversation.

"So apparently this Zangief guy was so smashed that he actually walked right out of _Tapper_ without his speedo," Harvey Stormer was telling the others behind him. "Walked right through the Station too, with his bits floppin' everywhere."

"And he got away with it?" Angela asked, licking meat grease off her fingers. She was a Crowdie, with a shaved head and half a dozen silver rings in each ear. She was known for sleeping in a hammock in her room rather than a normal bed, and for regularly sneaking into_ Medieval Mayhem_ to swim naked in the castle moat. "Nice. Was he big?"

Harvey held up the palms of his hands. His wrists were tightly wrapped in black leather arm bands. "How am I supposed to know?! I heard this from Thomas Rogan, and I didn't ask _that_."

Red rolled his eyes and turned back to the group. "Obviously your priorities are out of whack, Stormer," he said. "That's supposed to be the_ first_ thing you ask."

Angela, Lars, and Dave laughed. Harvey indulged the red-haired Head Crowdie with a little smirk, never losing for a second that cool, relaxed air that made the female gamers swoon over him. "Oh, _sorry._ Do you want me to go find out for you and Angie?"

"I have my own ways of finding out," Angela spoke up. She took a long swing of beer as her bright silver rings twinkled in her ears, catching bits of light from the fire. After her thirst was quenched, she smacked her lips. "Hey, Reddy Boy, what's up with you today? You've been staring out into the abyss for twenty minutes straight now."

"I'm soul-searching," Red joked. But with a more serious tone he added, "And brainstorming."

"Huh. _Multitasking._ Good for you."

"Eat it, Stormer," Red shot back at the blue-haired Brawler. Harvey only smirked again and dug a toothpick into his top row of pearly whites. Turning back to Angela, Red explained, "I'm brainstorming ways to make _Brawl Nation_ more...expanded."

Angela raised a plucked eyebrow at him. "_Expanded?_ What's_ that_ supposed to mean?"

Red swept his arm out in the direction of the wastelands, which lay before them like a vacant, windy stage. "Look out there. What do you see?"

"Is this a trick question?" Harvey asked. "Or have you been breathing in too much of the dust? There's nothing out there, buddy."

"Exactly!" Red cried. "There's _nothing_ out there!"

"There's rubble," Lars, a Crowdie with a stocky build, pointed out. "From the abandoned cities. And those mountains out west."

"But there's nothing for _us_ out there," Red said. "Nothing for the gamers either."

"I'm going to take a wild stab in the dark here and say that you're about to come to some sort of _point_ with this," Harvey spoke up sarcastically. Like the rest of the Brawlers, thick sarcasm was in his code. Stormer in particular could shoot sharp remarks from his mouth like he shot bolts of lightning from his fingertips, while remaining as cool as a cucumber and unmoving as the mountains that lay beyond the bleak wastelands.

"As a matter of fact, I _do_ have a point," Red replied. "In our backstory, we built this city and its arenas, out of the scraps left behind by the war. I know it's just a backstory, but the programmers made us _capable_ of building and inventing. They also gave us all of this freaking space, right at our disposal. I say we put two and two together and make something of it."

"Like?" Angela asked curiously.

"Another arena!" Red stated excitedly, his face glowing as he finally announced the idea that had been simmering in his mind and was now boiling hot. "A _seventh_ arena! One so awesome it'll make the other six look like children's playgrounds! It could be a bonus level...or better yet, the final level! The gamers won't get bored, and we won't—"

"You're worried about the gamers getting bored?" Harvey interrupted. "Where have _you_ been the last two weeks? The gamers love us! They went nuts over us the day we were plugged in!" He spoke with all the arrogance and confidence that came with being a video game character who was safe and content in their place.

"Stormer, _wait_," Angela spoke up, setting her beer mug aside. "I think Reddy might be on to something. It's happened before."

Harvey stared at her. "What's happened before?"

"Gamers losing interest," Angela replied. "And shoving their quarters into some other game's hole."

"Lovely image there, Angie" Harvey said. "But not grounds for panicking like rats. We've had more gamers than we know what to do with. We don't need another arena to keep them entertained. They're having a jolly enough old time making Bladefury stick knives in us...or making Speedslam knock us out with his hammers...or making Crater set us on fire..."

"What's this_ 'us'_ bullshit? It's only you Brawlers who go through that. The rest of us chillax in the stands, from a safe distance," Angela cut in. But then she smirked knowingly. "Ooooh, I think I get it now! You don't want another arena because it'll be just another place that you get your ass kicked in!"

Harvey's shot her an irritated look, but did not lose his composure. "Not even close. And did you even _see_ me fry Sparks like an onion ring today? _She's_ the one who should be worried about getting her ass kicked in arena number seven...if, under any circumstances, it comes to exist." Harvey hardly ever bothered to disguise his jealousy towards Nora's popularity with the gamers. He thought the general fascination with her disability was ridiculous, and whenever she sent a giant chunk of earth or metal hurling in his direction _while standing_ _on the other side of the arena_ he couldn't help but wonder how much of a disability it _really_ was. Needless to say, he got quite a lot of lip from the others for his attitude. Like everyone else, he was supposed to feel _sorry_ for her. He didn't, though. Not really. And his opposition to a new arena was mostly laziness, though he didn't want to admit it. He didn't want to slave away on building and learning his way around a new fighting ring. There were already six others standing strong. Why did _Brawl Nation_ need a seventh? The way Red was selling the idea, one would think that they were desperate.

"I think another arena would be cool," Dave spoke up timidly. He was a scrawny Crowdie, with most of his body weight being his own various piercings. He was a bit on the quiet side, but was well-liked by everyone for his honest nature. "How far out into the wastelands would we built it, though?"

"Far enough so the gamers won't see it until it's finished," Red concluded. He looked out again into the wastelands, considering the space, considering the endless possibilities. They could build it anywhere, really.

"If we could find a destroyed building that can be patched up..." Angela began thoughtfully. She hadn't paid any heed to Harvey's diss of Nora. She knew that it was the jealousy talking, because that day Nora had give _him_ a smackdown in the arenas that more than made up for his frying. A seventh arena wouldn't change anything. Nora would always be _Brawl Nation's _best fighter, because that's how the programmers intended it. "You know, Reddy, this idea of yours is actually sort of fucking brilliant."

"If 'brilliant' is the new word for 'totally nuts'," Harvey said, his tone dripping his skepticism. "How many people in this game do you think are going to be willing to put in so much time and effort to build this little science project of yours?"

"Ooooh, we'll see, Stormer. I'm going to call for a game meeting tomorrow," Red announced decisively. "We'll ask _everyone _what they're willing to contribute to this idea. We'll put it to a vote."

"You've already got my vote," Angela told him, shooting him a dazzling comrade's smile. "My tool box is at your disposal."

"And mine," Lars said. "I'm _in_."

"Same here," Dave said. They all looked at Harvey, who gave them all an indifferent glare.

"You kids do what you want," Harvey said dismissively. "But don't say I didn't warn you." He brought his beer mug to his lips and drank deeply.

Red's mouth curved into a victorious smile. "Tomorrow, then. Right after the arcade closes. We'll get everyone in the Amphi Arena and hold a mass conference. And you don't have to show up if you don't want to, Stormer. You can go off and scare some small children or something while the rest of us are planning to improve our game."

Harvey said nothing, merely reaching for another sausage while Red, Angela, Lars and Dave broke into a long, enthusiastic discussion about what the new arena would be like, what theme it would be, what dangerous surprises it would have. In the wastelands, the wind picked up and began to make the dust dance again. If one listened closely, they could hear the wind singing with joy as she and the dust moved about in a graceful waltz. If the new arena came to pass, there would soon be others dancing in the terrain as well. Dancing...and _brawling._

* * *

**End of Chapter**

* * *

Again, I'm super sorry about this cheap bullshit. I'll stuff the next chapter with Nora/Ralph fluff if it makes you all feel better. Please review!


	7. Championship Coin and Beer Toss

Okay, first things first. Let me tell all of you how fucking sorry I am for making you wait so long for this chapter. Let me also tell you how much I appreciate your patience and loyalty to this ridiculous story of mine. This is been a very rough year for me and it's been hard to get the creative juices flowing. But yesterday I had a random urge to write and I got this whole thing done in one go, so I guess you can call this an early Christmas miracle. Happy reading!

* * *

** Chapter Seven: Championship Coin and Beer Toss **

* * *

"I know you said that you owed me a coin," Ralph grumbled to Nora. "But I didn't think you were going to make me _work_ for it."

"If your hands are as big as Vanellope says, this should be easy for you," Nora teased. Ralph was learning the hard way that his new friend had a jokester side. As he unsuccessfully made another attempt to snatch up the round copper _Brawl Nation_ coin that was floating above their table—controlled, of course, by Nora's powers—he couldn't help but wonder what other gags awaited him during what he hoped would be a long and close acquaintance with her.

"Aha!" he cried, when he caught the tiny coin at last, but then it slid out through the space between two of his gargantuan fingers and flew up higher. Like a cat attacking a piece of yarn, Ralph determinedly kept grabbing for it, only to be thwarted each time by Nora's quick-thinking. A devilish grin was spread across her face and she moved her right pointer finger around like a conductor, making the coin spin and soar and dance circles around Ralph's clumsy, clammy hands. Vanellope was giggling like mad, never for a moment taking her eyes off the coin, and she was rewarded for her concentration when Nora made the coin freeze in front of her, and she snatched it up quickly and easily with her gloved hands.

"Hey, that's mine!" Ralph nearly cried out, but he didn't want to sound like a petty child in front of Nora, so he merely sighed and crossed his arms in annoyance for having lost the treasure the Brawler had promised him.

"It's so _small_," Vanellope commented. She held up the coin for inspection, squeezing one eye shut to examine the details more closely. It had the initials B.N on it, framed by what looked like chain links. "In my game, the coins are gold, and as big as Paper Butt's fat head."

"Gold coins? You could probably buy up half my game with one of those. What do you use them for?" Nora asked her young friend curiously.

"We _used_ to use them to buy our way into the Random Roster Races, but I abolished that system. Instead I devised a schedule that makes sure everyone has the exact same number of turns being on the roster. Sticky didn't get to be on the roster for a _week_ once 'cause she kept ending up in fifteenth or sixteenth place? It's so stupid and unfair, so I changed it. My idea is waaay better, don't you think? Now after the arcade closes we just do what we want and we use our gold coins to buy stuff we want instead of wasting them on races we don't always win."

"This little miser here is a bit of a revolutionist," Ralph commented. Nora smiled.

"_I_ think it's great, kiddo. Equalization is where it's at. In _Brawl Nation_ the coins are scattered around the arenas during game-play. We collect them while we're brawling and if we collect enough of them, we get a HP boost. But we don't keep what coins we win at the end of the day. We only keep the same amount as what our NPCs are paid. It was Red's master plan, to keep things fair and square. I'd think you two would get along. He's an idea guy too."

"But that doesn't make any sense," Ralph argued. "You and those other Brawlers…you're the main characters. Shouldn't you be paid _more_?"

Nora shook her head. "The Crowdies work their butts off when the gamers aren't looking. I don't see any reason why they should get less than us."

"I thought you couldn't see _anything_," a woman's slurring voice snidely remarked from the table behind theirs. Ralph, Nora, and Vanellope turned to find Anna Williams from _Tekken_ cackling with the scarcely dressed flag girls from the racing game _Battle Wheels._ They were all only nursing their first _Tapper_ beer each but they had pre-drank in _Battle Wheels _before coming to the bar, and the alcohol had seeped into their codes and given them a reckless sort of courage that made them eager to mock the girl who allegedly could make earthquakes with her mind.

"I'm sorry, do I know you?" Nora snapped, staring straight ahead in the direction of the voice with an expression that could cut through glass. Ralph and Vanellope were throwing Anna similar dirty looks, but Nora's was the most effective. There was something unnerving about how she could make her lifeless eyes scream _murder _when she wanted them to.

That deadly glare made Anna pause, but not back down. She was far too drunk for reason, and in her intoxicated state, she decided that she didn't like Nora. She and many, many others considered the blind girl to be a nuisance and an upstart, prancing into _their _arcade and stealing everyone's thunder, and then making them all leap out of her way when she strutted through Game Central Station like she was some sort of goddess in sunglasses. It was an outrage. "You wouldn't know me, sweetie. It doesn't—_hic!_—look like you move around in the best social circles. Where'd you meet _this_ winning duo? In a circus game?"

The flag girls giggled obnoxiously. "This arcade doesn't even _have _a circus game, stupid!" Vanellope cried.

"Mind your own business, _Nina_," Ralph warned Nora's harasser. He hit her right where it hurt, just as he had hoped. It was common knowledge that Anna _despised _being mistaken for her sister Nina Williams or compared to her in any way. The younger Williams girl's face turned as red as her trademark cocktail dress. Ralph smiled at his small but delicious victory and turned to his two companions. "Do you guys want to skedaddle? These ladies are as drunk as skunks and I think we should just—"

He didn't get to finish his sentence, because Anna threw her beer mug at his head and it smashed into pieces against his skull. Ralph fell off his seat and onto the floor once again, his head spinning wildly as the beer soaked through his shirts and big white spots danced before his eyes. He heard Vanellope screaming and Nora shrieking at Anna (or was it Nina? He'd called her Nina. Maybe it really had been Nina) and then Tapper shouting and then…some voices he didn't recognize. A girl voice. Then another girl voice. Then a guy voice. Then he felt something like a strong gush of wind pass over him but he was out cold before he could even question why _Tapper _suddenly had wind. If he was lucky, he'd never wake up again. The universe was obviously still hell-bent on making his life miserable. Who knew what would happen if he regained consciousness?

* * *

He _did_ regain consciousness, after what felt like years in pitch blackness. When he opened his eyes he was still on _Tapper's_ floor, with a warm, gentle hand smoothing back his hair in a soothing manner that reminded him of what his mother used to do back when he was a restless tot who couldn't go to sleep because he'd eaten some bad berries or heard a scary noise coming from somewhere in the forest. It felt nice. In fact, it felt _really_ nice. When the shaky white spots went away and his vision cleared up he discovered with mixed delight and embarrassment that it was _Nora's_ right hand, with its pretty fingers he admired so much, running through his hair and gently massaging his scalp. Her other hand held an ice pack against the area where his head throbbed from the blow he'd received. When she realized that he was awake she gave a cry of relief.

"Oh, _praise the programmers_, he's coming to," an unfamiliar female's voice cried out as well. Ralph tried lifting his head to get a good look at the owner of this voice, who sounded so concerned for his well-being despite being a complete stranger to him, but a sudden sharp pain above his left ear put an end to _that_ idea, and he fell back onto the towels someone had stacked under his head, clenching his eyes shut while he waited for the pain to pass, which it eventually did.

Yet another girl he didn't know ungracefully plonked herself down on the floor beside him, and he was able to turn his head just enough to get a good look at _her_ face. She had a tough, brutish look to her. She reminded him of the Sergeant, except that she was younger and that her eyes were green, not blue. Her blonde hair was pulled back off her face in a tight braid as thick and durable as a rope. There was a small tattoo on her neck, but he couldn't make out what it was. It looked like some sort of bird. She reached out and gave his knee a pat. "Hang in there, buddy. Dr. Mario's on his way and if he fucks up, Dr. Sheila will buy you a beer. There's no better medicine out there."

"Oh, Ralph, I'm so sorry this happened," Nora whispered, still holding his head her hands. Max had once told her that when someone had a head injury one of the worst things you could do was talk to them too loudly. "If I ever run into Anna Williams again, I'll murder her," she thought furiously. "Scratch that. I'll smash a beer mug over _her_ head and scream out the lyrics to Bohemian Rhapsody right afterwards."

She was thankful that her friends had arrived just in time to chase Anna and the flag girls out of _Tapper_, with the blessing of Tapper himself, who was quick to ban the _Tekken_ bitch and her posse for life. Sheila had done most of the work, casually pushing them along with her air blasts, since the drunken broads kept tripping all over themselves as they scrambled to leave. Lana kept her sharpest knife out and ready in case Anna tried anything funny, since she was a reputedly an excellent fighter…though not so much when she was drunk. She and Mitch loaded them onto the train like cattle, and Mitch volunteered to drop their miserable behinds off in the Game Central Station—where the Surge Protector would deal with them—and then seek out Dr. Mario for Ralph. Mitch had his homemade stun gun hidden on him and who knew what other gadgets, and he was as quick as a snake. He could handle such a task on his own. "I got this. Go back to Windblast and Sparks," he insisted when Lana offered to go with him. "They might need you around. Also, I'm guessing that the pipsqueak in the poofy pink thing was the princess the Surge was talking about. I have pairs of socks that are older than she is. So…yeah, there's nothing to keep me busy in _Tapper_."

Lana had rolled her eyes but wished him luck anyway. Now she was watching Nora with concern, like she often did, and also with interest because of the obvious affection her long-time friend and roommate had for this giant with the most massive hands she'd ever seen. Sheila glanced over her shoulder at her and Lana could tell by the look in her eyes and the suggestive raising of her eyebrows that they were both thinking the exact same thing. They both smirked, but said nothing, knowing that there would be plenty of time later for questions and teasing.

Tapper came through the kitchen's double doors, holding Vanellope by the hand. To help ease her distress he'd whisked her away from the scene so she could dry her tears and down a glass of warm milk while the adults handled the situation. And handled it they had. He was impressed with the Brawlers and their knack for getting dirty work done fast. No police force in the arcade could have accomplished such a feat any better, nor would they have made such an effort for someone like Ralph.

He shook his head and murmured, "Poor Ralph," under his breath, softly enough so that Vanellope didn't hear it. He let go of her hand and she ran towards Ralph as fast as she could in her gown, dropping down next to Sheila and burying his face in his side. She began muttering about what an idiot he was to make that butt-face Anna Williams mad and how he wasn't allowed to talk to mean ladies anymore. Tapper looked at Lana, Sheila, and Nora and smiled to himself. _That _wasn't going to be a hard rule for Ralph to follow at all. He had the _Brawl Nation_ girls as his allies now, and the _Brawl Nation_ girls were top shelf.

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**End of Chapter**

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Well, that's it. Send me dem reviews! I haven't gotten reviews in awhile! Cheers.


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